Al-Shabaab attacks, Kenya

In Kenya on Nov. 22, armed members of al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant organization based in Somalia, hijacked a public bus that was traveling from the town of Mandera to Nairobi. Passengers were forced to read from the Koran, and the 28 people who could not do so were killed.

On Dec. 2, 36 people were killed when al-Shabaab militants attacked a quarry near Mandera, a city in northeastern-most Kenya near the borders of Somalia and Ethiopia.

Al-Shabaab spokesmen blamed both attacks on Kenyan raids in Mombasa that resulted in more than 150 arrests of members of al-Shabaab and the seizure of explosives.