Al Qaeda plotted to kill the Queen? In Uganda?

God save the Queen.

A plot by al-Qa'ida operatives to kill the Queen during a state visit to Uganda less than two months ago was foiled by security services.

The terrorists had planned to hide inside two broadcast vans owned by the Ugandan Broadcasting Corporation and then set off bombs during the Queen's visit to Kampala last November.

London's Sunday Express reported the vans were seized after a tip-off from intelligence agents.
As a result, the broadcaster was unable to transmit live pictures of key summit events, including the Queen's historic address to the Ugandan parliament on November 22.

The Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla travelled to the east African nation's capital for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, attended by more than 30 world leaders. Australia was represented by Richard Alston, the High Commissioner to London.

Uganda's Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda said several suspected terrorists were arrested. "We received information that a terrorist group linked to al-Qa'ida, the Allied Democratic Forces, was planning to carry out terrorist activities at the Commonwealth meeting," he told the Sunday Express. "The security services in Uganda neutralised these threats."

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And remember this?

Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman Al Zawahri directly addressed the Queen when threatening attacks on Britain last July, following the knighthood given to Salman Rushdie, who angered Muslims with his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

In a 20-minute tape broadcast on Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, he threatened: “I say to [Queen] Elizabeth and Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing you for a precise response.”

The ADF is one of a number of Islamic terrorist organisations set up in east Africa with Al Qaeda support in the early Nineties when Osama Bin Laden was living in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Its leader, Jamil Mukulu, who was trained at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, launched his first attack in Uganda in 1996. A spate of bombings culminated in 30 students being abducted from their college in Kasese and massacred in 1998.

An explosion in Kampala last February killed two people and injured six.