article_snippet.sent: (CNN)This week's attack on Garissa University College is Al-Shabaab's fifth major assault in Kenya in the past year and a half.
article_snippet.sent: The Thursday massacre was the most deadly assault so far, with 147 dead, easily eclipsing the terrorist group's most notorious attack, a four-day siege in late September 2013 at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in which 67 people were killed.
article_snippet.sent: After Al-Shabaab's attack on Garissa University College, Al-Shabaab's unleashed a string of attacks in Kenya that have killed more than 100 people -- assaulting the coastal town of Mpeketoni on June 16, 2014; shooting bus passengers who could not recite the Quran on November 22, 2014; and then, days later, executing Christian quarry laborers.
article_snippet.sent: Why is Al-Shabaab, a Somali nationalist, Islamist group affiliated with al Qaeda, targeting Kenya?
article_snippet.sent: Al-Shabaab's says Al-Shabaab's attacks are to protest the more than 3,500 Kenyan soldiers participating in the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia.
article_snippet.sent: But if that is the case, why doesn't Al-Shabaab's target Kenyan military bases rather than attacking undefended so-called soft targets such as Kenyan malls and universities?
article_snippet.sent: In 2006, Al-Shabaab's controlled the Somali capital of Mogadishu and, in the following years, much of central and southern Somalia.
article_snippet.sent: Six years later, African Union forces had recaptured Mogadishu, parts of Somalia Somalia and critical cities such as Kismayo.
article_snippet.sent: The loss of Kismayo, Al-Shabaab's last city stronghold and an important port, took a financial toll on the group.
highlights_snippet.sent: Al-Shabaab's attack on Garissa University College is the group's deadliest so far in Kenya .
  