The attack took place in a residential building in which al-Shabab used explosives to invade a gated area and shoot haphazardly within the vicinity killing six innocent victims. The residential block was located in the Mandera region on the Somali border, a location the al-Shabab has continuously targeted. The group’s militants have publicly announced resolve to continue violence until the government agrees to extract troops from the African Union force in Somalia.
Multiple attacks have caused a mass amount of casualties in Kenya for the past three years, and the violence has significantly impacted the country’s tourism industry. Most of the violence has occurred on Somalia’s border, coastal areas where tourists visit and in the capital Nairobi where a massive shooting at the Westgate shopping centre took place in 2013. The al-Shabab have been connected with al-Qaeda and have been at war with Kenya since 2011 when Kenyan troops occupied Somalia.
In 2015, Kenya's government also sought to construct a wall along the Somali border for security, but the plan was met with much defiance from border communities and the Somali government. As the al-Shabab have successfully infiltrated and attacked parts of the Mandera border, the Kenyan government executed a terror alert in March warning of future assaults likely to occur if the group is not stopped.
Read more visit:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/al-shabab-blamed-attack-northeast-kenya-161006052130719.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37571205
http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL5N1CC0ED
