Al-Shabaab's attacks in Uganda and Kenya, 2010 to 2019

In short

Al-Shabaab has carried out attacks in the countries that sent troops to Somalia, above all Uganda and Kenya. This page records the four deadliest, as the sources report them. The troop deployments are covered in Uganda's military in Somalia and Kenya's military in Somalia.

Kampala, 11 July 2010

Two bombs exploded on the evening of the World Cup final in Kampala, one at an Ethiopian restaurant and one at a rugby club where people were watching the match. At least 74 people were killed. Al-Shabaab told Al Jazeera that it had organised and carried out the bombings (Al Jazeera, 12 July 2010). Wikipedia describes it as the group's first attack outside Somalia (Wikipedia, 2010 Kampala bombings).

Westgate, Nairobi, September 2013

On Saturday 21 September 2013 gunmen entered the Westgate mall in Nairobi; the siege lasted, at least nominally, four days. At least 70 people were killed, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, which wrote that the attackers questioned shoppers and killed those they took to be Christians while sparing Muslims, and at other times killed indiscriminately. It noted unanswered questions about how many attackers there were and when they left, and that film showed Kenyan soldiers looting the mall; President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered an inquiry (John Campbell, Council on Foreign Relations, 8 October 2013).

In October 2013 BBC Newsnight named one of the four gunmen seen on CCTV as Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, a 23-year-old Norwegian citizen of Somali origin; Norway's intelligence service sent officers to Kenya to check the reports (Graphic Online, BBC, 18 October 2013). Wikipedia records that the service later confirmed he had died in the mall, after forensic identification by the FBI (Wikipedia, Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow).

Garissa University College, 2 April 2015

Gunmen attacked Garissa University College in north-eastern Kenya at about 5:30 a.m. and held students and staff hostage for hours. By nightfall the government confirmed 147 dead and said security forces had killed all four gunmen; a local source put the toll at 170 the next day. Media accounts described the attackers singling out Christian students. Al-Shabaab claimed the attack. Human Rights Watch's Leslie Lefkow called it a "despicable attack on students" and urged Kenya to "ensure a lawful response in line with human rights" (Human Rights Watch, 3 April 2015).

DusitD2, Nairobi, 15 January 2019

Five attackers struck the office complex at 14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi, which includes the DusitD2 hotel. One blew himself up outside a restaurant, and the others moved through the offices and the hotel with rifles and grenades. Twenty-one people were killed and at least 28 injured; the siege ended the next morning with about 700 people rescued. Al-Shabaab claimed the attack in a statement linking it to the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Researchers at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center wrote that it was al-Shabaab's first successful suicide bombing in Kenya and its first major attack there carried out mainly by non-Somali Kenyans (Matt Bryden and Premdeep Bahra, CTC Sentinel, July 2019).

Al-Qaeda's earlier East Africa cell, including the 1998 embassy bombings and the 2009 and 2011 killings of its leaders in Somalia, is covered in Al-Qaeda's East Africa cell and Somalia, 1998 to 2011.

Sources differ

• Kampala deaths. 74 (Al Jazeera); early reports gave fewer, and some later analyses 76.
• Westgate deaths. 67 in the Kenyan government's count; at least 70 (Council on Foreign Relations); later totals of 72 including attackers.
• Garissa deaths. 147 (government, 2 April 2015), 148 in later counts (Wikipedia), or 170 (a local source cited by Human Rights Watch).
• Al-Shabaab's stated reason for DusitD2. The group cited Jerusalem; the CTC Sentinel authors argued the attack was planned well before that decision.

Read the primary sources yourself

• Human Rights Watch, "Kenya: At least 147 dead in heinous Garissa attack" (2015): statement.
• Matt Bryden and Premdeep Bahra, "East Africa's Terrorist Triple Helix", CTC Sentinel (2019): article.