Somalia's Shabab insurgents claimed responsibility for July 11 simultaneous attacks in Uganda's capital Kampala that targeted crowds watching the World Cup final at public gathering places. Aleast 74 were killed in the bombings—the deadliest attacks yet carried out by the Shabab, and their first outside Somalia. The statement said the attacks were in retaliation for Uganda's role in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The Uganda attacks were the deadliest in East Africa since the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which left more than 200 dead.

The opposition candidate in Somaliland, an unrecognized independent republic in northwest Somalia, prevailed over the incumbent president in elections held late last month and approved by international observers. The election saw the defeat of President Dahir Riyale Kahin and his United Democratic People's Party (UDUB), which has been in power since independence in 1991. The new president-elect, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo of the Kulmiye party, will be sworn in by July 26. All parties have pledged to respect the result, boosting Somaliland as a "model" for the Horn of Africa.

Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 12 charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in relation to the Darfur conflict. The chamber found that there were reasonable grounds to conclude that Bashir had committed genocide against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. The charges included "genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction."

An Israeli military probe found insufficient intelligence and planning in the May 31 raid on several Turkish ships bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip in a report released July 12, but also concluded that no punishments were necessary. The Eiland Commission, which was formed last month to investigate the raid, was composed of professionals outside of the chain of command for the flotilla raid and had been assigned to study the outcomes of the incident and "establish lessons." The commission declassified some sections of its findings, which concluded that the Israeli Navy failed to sufficiently consider the possibility that its troops could encounter violent resistance.

From the Los Angeles Times, July 11:

OAKLAND, Calif. — As business owners boarded up broken windows and scrubbed graffiti here Friday, Oakland officials assessed the damage wrought by protesters after the verdict in a high-profile police shooting case and blamed outside agitators for the worst of it.

Bolivian Defense Minister Rubén Saavedra has ordered an investigation of a July 7 incident in which a T-33 military jet fired a missile from its base in El Alto that passed within a meter of the tail of the official presidential plane, a Falcón 900 EX Easy recently purchased from France. The missile hit a nearby house, causing no casualties. The government said it would pay for the damage to the house. Both planes were apparently on the ground when the incident occurred. President Morales does not appear to have been on board at the time. However, a day earlier his helicopter had to return to Chimoré air base in Cochabamba when it developed engine trouble immediately after taking off. (La Prensa, La Paz, July 8; Prensa Latina, July 7)

Mexico foiled an attempt by Hezbollah to establish a network in South America, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Seyassah reported last week. Hezbollah operatives employed Mexicans nationals with family ties to Lebanon to set up the network, according to the account. Mexican police reportedly mounted a surveillance operation on the group's leader, Jameel Nasr, who traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive information and instructions from Hezbollah commanders there. Nasr, who was arrested this month in Tijuana, also made frequent trips to other countries in Latin America, including a two-month stay in Venezuela in the summer of 2008, Mexican police reportedly told the Kuwaiti daily.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for 70 years until 2000, was expected to reap gains in the July 4 gubernatorial races, with voters disillusioned by escalating narco-violence under the hardline policies of President Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN). In fact, the PRI won nine of the 12 states that elected new governors—including Zacatecas, Tlaxcala and Aguascalientes, three states where it had been out of power for 12 years. The PRI also won municipal races in the border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. But it lost three states where it had governed for generations—Sinaloa, Oaxaca and Puebla. In each of these three, the PRI lost to candidates fielded by an alliance of the conservative PAN and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). (Latin America News Dispatch, July 6; WSJ, July 6)