This dyad belongs to the conflict Uganda: Islamic State
Summary of conflict Uganda: Islamic State
When the ADF made an official pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in July 2019, it adopted the struggle for a Global Caliphate. Since then, the Congolese branch of the Islamic State's Central Africa Province (ISCAP-DRC) operated in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the ADF conducted several operations from the DR Congo into Uganda during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the group's cross-border operations had mostly ceased after a series of military actions by the Ugandan government in 2007. However, a series of attacks against the Ugandan armed forces on Ugandan soil started taking place in 2021. A series of shootings and the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), as well as suicide attacks took place in Kampala, and thus the territorial conflict between the Islamic State and the Government of Uganda commenced.
In 2022, IS continued its attacks against the Ugandan government. The conflict between the Ugandan government and IS crossed the 25 battle-related deaths threshold for the first time on 21 December 2022. On 12 December 2022, between 20 and 30 IS fighters crossed the Semiliki river from the DR Congo into Ntoroko district in Uganda, from then on, the Uganda People's Defence Forces kept tracking and killing the IS fighters until on 21 December, they reached the threshold making the dyad active.
In depth
ADF as part of the Islamic State
The ADF began as a militant Islamist movement in Uganda in 1995 before setting up bases in the forests of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it remained for nearly two decades, turning into one of the deadliest armed groups operating therey. The group emerged from an Islamist insurgency against the Ugandan government and was allowed to have bases in the DRC under President Mobutu's rule.
The ADF's affiliation with the Islamic State (IS) was announced in a video released on 24 July 2019, which showed ADF members swearing allegiance to the group. UCDP has considered the acceptance of the bay'ah by the Caliph as the criteria for a group to become IS, thus setting 24 July 2019 as the start date on which ADF joined IS and thus becoming part of the DR Congo: Islamic State conflict. In a video released on 18 September 2020, the group’s leader Musa Baluku gave further evidence of his alignment with the Islamic State, stating that the ADF no longer exists and that they are now a province, the Central Africa Province, which is under the Caliph and Leader of all Muslims, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi.
The year 2021 marked the spread of the group’s violence into Uganda, indicating that the area may once again become a target of sustained IS operations.
Renewed attacks in Uganda in 2021
From June to December 2021, the Islamic State was responsible for at least one assassination attempt and a series of bombings and attempted bombings in Uganda. These renewed operations coincided with the group's push back into the Rwenzori area in the DR Congo. In October 2021, the Islamic State (IS) claimed the detonation of three bombs, including a failed suicide attack outside of Kampala. These operations represented the successful resumption of the ADF's offensive operations inside Uganda, which it had not conducted since at least 2017.
The bombings marked two significant developments. Firstly, they were the initial suicide bombings claimed by the Islamic State in Uganda, and they occurred beyond the group's primary area of activity in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, indicating a desire by the Islamic State to expand its influence to new regions. Secondly, the bombings followed a coordinated, yet failed, effort by the ADF to bomb several civilian targets in Rwanda, and there were credible reports of the group's attempts to establish cells in neighboring countries.
