Gama'a Al-Islamiyya

aka Islamic Group, IG

Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Egypt's largest militant group, seeks to overthrow the Egyptian government and replace it with an Islamic theocracy. The organization, formed in the late 1970s, carried out terrorist attacks on foreigners and police officers. Because so many of the attacks targeted tourists, Egypt's tourism industry had been severely affected.

The U.S. State Department reports that at its height, Gama'a boasted membership of several thousand as well as thousands of sympathizers. The group claimed responsibility for the 1995 attempted assassination of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as many attacks on tourist buses and a Nile cruise ship. While Gama'a operates primarily in southern Egypt, the group has support in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities, as well as a presence in Sudan, the United Kingdom, Afghanistan, Austria, and Yemen. The Egyptian government has said that Gama'a received financial ...