The militant group, al-Shabaab, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's coordinated assault on the Dusit D2 compound, an upmarket cluster of shops and hotel facilities, and has carried out many others within the past decade, often targeting both Kenyan troops and civilians.
Here is a look at the major attacks carried out by the group.
Cars are seen on fire at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, January 15, 2019. / VCG Photo
In 2010, the group declared jihad against the country. The first major al-Shabaab attack took place in September 2013 with Westgate, an upscale shopping mall in downtown Nairobi, as its target, which just miles away from the hotel that came under siege on Tuesday.
In the same year, a new attack came a day after a Kenyan court said three men must stand trial for their alleged role in the 2013 terrorist attack on the mall. The subsequent siege lasted 80 hours and resulted in at least 67 deaths.
Smoke rise from the Westgate mall, September 23, 2013. / VCG Photo
The next major attack came in November 2014. The group claimed a bus hijacking in Mandera, a city on the Kenyan side of the border with Somalia. The militants singled out and killed all 28 non-Muslim passengers. Al-Shabaab said it was a revenge for Kenyan police raiding mosques in Mombasa.
Rescue workers walk near a Nairobi-bound bus that was ambushed outside Mandera town, near Kenya's border with Somalia and Ethiopia, November 22, 2014. / VCG Photo
The most deadly attack came in April 2015. Heavily armed gunmen stormed the Garissa University College campus in eastern Kenya, killing two security guards before firing indiscriminately on students.
Some accounts say the militants pulled students from their dorm rooms in the early hours of the morning, told them to lay face-down, and executed them. They killed 148 in total during the raid.
Schoolmates mourn during the burial of Angela Nyokabi, a student killed during an attack by gunmen at Garissa University, April 10, 2015. / VCG Photo
The latest attack on the hotel in Nairobi comes three years after al-Shabaab stormed a Kenyan army base in EI Adde, Somalia. It was the largest military defeat in Kenyan history. The exact number of soldiers killed remains unknown but while 141 deaths have been confirmed, that number is suspected to be even higher.
Tuesday's attack proves that jihad is still on the minds of many al-Shabaab militants and that their propensity for violence has not gone away.