KAMPALA, UGANDA: President Museveni, the Commander in chief of armed forces has revealed that the two UPDF commanders who were in charge during the Al-Shabaab attack on the ATMIS base in Somalia will be prosecuted before the court martial for their mistake.
The duo whom he identified as Maj Oluka and Maj Obbo allegedly ordered the soldiers to retreat in the May 26 attack on a Forward Operating Base in Lower Shabelle by the Islamic militants.
“They have been apprehended and will face charges in the Court Martial. Our soldiers demonstrated remarkable resilience and reorganized themselves, resulting in the recapture of the base,” Mr Museveni tweeted on Saturday evening.
The President who had earlier in the day address the NRM MPs during the ongoing retreat in Kyakwanzi also revealed that UPDF had recovered at least 54 bodies of Ugandan soldiers killed in what could be the highest number of UPDF casualties in a single battle in Somalia in recent years.
On the side of the good news, Mr Museveni told the MPs that a few days ago the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) managed to successfully recapture the Buulo Mareer Base from the Al-Shabaab terrorists in Somalia.
“Our soldiers demonstrated remarkable resilience and reorganized themselves, resulting in the recapture of the base by Tuesday,” President Museveni revealed.
President Museveni also emphasized that corruption played a major role in the problem, citing the promotion of a soldier responsible for managing an army shop to a commanding position.
The corruption, he said, started here at home during recruitment when soldiers who were not combat-ready found themselves in Somalia through corrupt ways.
“I will get the identity of the other one. But there is one called Okia, who apparently was in the army shop in Kampala. He is the one who told the soldiers to run away. So, he is under arrest,” the President said.
Mr Museveni had in an earlier statement said that the soldiers did not perform as expected and panicked which disorganised leaving the al-Shabaab to take advantage and eventually overrun the base and destroy equipment.
“The panic, it seems, was totally unnecessary because, in fact, both the anti-tank ditch and our soldiers had destroyed the three vehicles of explosives outside the FOB. The suicide bombers or whatever were forced to blow themselves up before they gained entry into the base,” Museveni said.
Al Shabaab, which is known to exaggerate its figures, claimed to have killed 137 Ugandan soldiers and seizing vehicles and the base’s cache of weapons and ammunition.
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