It has been a few weeks of panic in Kenya and Uganda with security personnel working around the clock to decipher how Somalia-based Al Shabaab terrorists infiltrated the countries and yet again carried out attacks that have killed hundreds.

Kenya has borne the brunt of the attacks, the latest of which on April 4 left 148 dead at Garissa University College.

And now, Uganda says it has received “credible intelligence” that Al Shabaab is planning attacks on a number of targets in the east of the country, according to Inspecor-General of Police Gen Kale Kayihura.

Even without massive terrorist attacks, Ugandan police have linked terrorism to the criminal gangs that have run amok, recently killing assistant director of public prosecutions Joan Kagezi and previously assassinating a number of Muslim clerics and police officers. 

Ms Kagezi was the lead prosecutor in the trial of a dozen suspects in the 2010 Al Shabaab terrorist attack in Kampala that left 79 dead at a football World Cup screening.

Citing a security dossier by the Uganda Police’s Directorate of Intelligence early last month, the April 10 issue of the Indian Ocean Newsletter (ION) links Ms Kagezi’s assassination to the Al Qaeda-affiliated Ugandan dissident Jamil Mukulu, who heads the terrorist Allied Democratic Forces that operates from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

READ: Kagezi murder: Did security misinterpret vital clues in their possession?

ALSO READ: Garissa massacre: Kampala on high alert after killings

Intelligence sources say Mukulu also sits on the Al Qaeda board and has been working to build terrorist cells inside Uganda that were responsible for the recent murders of Muslim clerics that opposed his Islamist jihadist crusade.

Since 2012, eight Muslim clerics have been murdered, the latest two gunned down within two days of each other last December. Because of these murders, Gen Kayihura had persuaded Ms Kagezi, who also headed the counterterrorism section of the Uganda High Court, to issue an international arrest warrant for Mukulu.

The dossier further states that the murders are a tipping point of the clashes between Mukulu’s camp of fundamentalist and jihadist Salafist Muslims and its Shiite rivals.

“Kayihura is convinced that the series of murders of Muslim clerics that has plunged the country into mourning and created political tension is connected with settling of scores between Shiites and Salafists,” the ION article reads.

The police have been rattled by these assassinations and, in the aftermath of Ms Kagezi’s murder on the evening of March 30, arrested several suspects, including Jamal Kiyemba, who is linked to Al Shabaab mentors Al Qaeda.

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee and six others were arrested following a tip-off from the United States embassy in Uganda. Ms Kagezi was shot dead by two gunmen on a motorcycle in a Kampala suburb. Police have since released an identikit of the assassin but it does not resemble Kiyemba’s facial features.

Police sources told The EastAfrican that “there is a spectre of more terrorist attacks hanging over Uganda and Kenya,” whose armies form a big chunk of the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (Amisom), and that “intelligence alerts and information are coming in rapidly, demanding fast processing to see if the threats are real or not.”

An example of this is the alert that Kenyan security sent to its Ugandan counterparts on April 9 that four suspected terrorists had entered Ugandan territory in a Kenya-registered Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.

Police revealed that the four claimed they were travelling to Beni, DRC. Apparently, the vehicle went through Uganda’s eastern border post of Malaba at 4am on April 9 but was intercepted 12 hours later near the western border with Congo.

Avoided border check

“The call to intercept the car came from our colleagues on the Kenyan side; they told us this Prado drove through the checkpoint at Malaba without being cleared,” Uganda Police spokesman Fred Enanga told The EastAfrican.

“We have now obtained new information that its registration number belongs to a yellow Honda and not a Prado. What we are still verifying is whether this was a case of carjacking or if these suspects are linked to the Garissa terrorist attack. It’s suspicious; otherwise, why would they try to avoid being checked and cleared at the border?”

By press time, the police in Uganda were still holding the suspects — three Kenyans and one Congolese — for interrogation pending a formal request for their extradition to Kenya.

Uganda has remained insulated from massive terrorist attacks since the July 11, 2010 twin bombings in Kampala. But Gen Kayihura warned recently that the police had received credible intelligence that Al Shabaab was planning fresh attacks targeting schools, colleges and universities located on eastern Uganda’s Kampala-Jinja highway.

“This calls for increased vigilance by everyone if we are to remain on top of the situation,” Gen Kayihura said.

However, given that the SUV drove partly on the same highway and went undetected for half a day as it cruised across Uganda, the vigilance of Ugandan police can be questioned.

Seeing the manner in which Ms Kagezi and the Muslim clerics were murdered, critics argue that the police only swing into action to chase after criminals rather than detecting and preventing the assassinations.

Meanwhile, Tanzania has tightened security in Dar es Salaam after reports that terrorists were targeting public gatherings and high-end hotels in the coastal city. A Tanzanian youth, Rashid Charles Mberesero, was earlier arrested in connection with the Garissa university attack.