Uganda detains man suspected of planning bomb attack on church

Police in Uganda said on Sunday they had foiled a bomb attack on a cathedral in the capital Kampala and arrested the man suspected of trying to activate the explosive device among worshippers.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Rubaga Miracle Centre cathedral after the man tried to enter with an explosive device, said police spokesman Patrick Onyango.

"We carried out a controlled detonation of the improvised explosive device consisting of nails, a motorbike battery, a charger and a telephone handset that was to be used in the attack," he told reporters outside the cathedral.

He said police had tracked the 28-year-old after receiving a tip-off about a possible attack on a place of worship, and found a bomb in his rucksack when he was arrested.

Police are looking for three other men, the suspect having indicated that he may have had accomplices.

The perimeter of the cathedral was cordoned off; sniffer dogs and members of bomb squads inspected the area but no threat was detected.

"The terrorist was a few metres from the entrance but the security forces intervened and he was arrested before he could enter the church and detonate the bomb", evangelical pastor Robert Kayanja told AFP. The pastor is a public supporter of President Yoweri Museveni.

According to a police note seen by AFP, the police had been warned of a possible attack in busy places, including churches and shopping centres.

In June, jihadists from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, killed 42 people, including 37 pupils, in a secondary school in western Uganda close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It was the deadliest attack in Uganda since the double bombing in Kampala in 2010, which killed 76 people in a raid claimed by the Somali-based Islamist group Shebab.