Why did a band of Somali Islamists bomb World Cup viewing parties in Uganda?
Dan Morrison (Slate Magazine) — Blood supplies were running low at Mulago Hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala Monday morning; oxygen tanks were, too. The emergency ward was full, its hallways lined with the broken victims of twin bomb attacks at a sports club and a restaurant where patrons had crowded to watch the World Cup final. Meanwhile, in Somalia, a world away from the bars and cafes of Kampala, Sheik Yusuf Isse celebrated the bombings as if his team had just vanquished the Dutch at Johannesburg’s Soccer City Stadium. “That is the best news we ever heard,” he told Reuters after the blasts. “Uganda is a major infidel country supporting the so-called government of Somalia,” said Isse, a commander of the Taliban-like Somali militia known as al-Shabaab. “We know Uganda is against Islam and so we are very happy at what has happened in Kampala.” Isse knows nothing about Uganda, a struggling democracy perched on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, with one critical exception: Ar
