The Mau Mau was one of the world’s shortest-lived terrorist organisations, but it was also one of the most violent. Formed in the early 1950s to force the British to grant independence to Kenya in East Africa, the Mau Mau consisted mainly of dissident Kikuyu tribesmen who carried out a number of shocking atrocities as they targeted white settlers on their remote farms. But the Mau Mau also attacked native black Kenyans too, especially those whom they regarded as traitors for supporting the British administration. Whole villages were wiped out.
