Ugandan minister calls for joint efforts to fight regional terrorism

Uganda’s Minister of Internal Affairs has called for collaboration of East African nations to fight terrorism.The region faces terror attacks which need joint cooperation to avert, Hilary Onek said at a two-day meeting that drew police chiefs from 12 Eastern African countries under their umbrella organisation Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (EAPCCO). “Terrorism is one of the biggest security challenges in the region. This exercise is a symbol of our togetherness in fighting crime,” Onek said in Kampala, yesterday. Lt. Gen. Kale Kayihura, the EAPCCO chairperson and also Uganda’s police chief, said that the current security threats need a regional approach noting that no country can fight terrorism and other transnational crimes alone. “The regional approach is the way to go. There is no police force that is self sufficient. This is a milestone in concretizing our joint efforts to fight crime,” he said.The meeting came at a time when the region is facing terror attacks and threats with the latest one in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha where a Sunday blast in a church left one person dead and dozens injured. In the Somali capital Mogadishu, a suicide car bomb blast on Sunday left 10 people dead and several others injured. Lt. Gen. Kayihura told the police chiefs that one of the cells of the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab has threatened to attack Uganda and Burundi in revenge of the two nation’s deployment of peacekeeping troops in Somalia. He said Ugandan security agencies have arrested some people who are helping in the investigations.

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Ugandan minister calls for joint efforts to fight regional terrorism