The Egyptian Government believes that Iran, Bin Laden, and Afghan militant groups support the organization. Also may obtain some funding through various Islamic NGOs.
Egypt's largest militant group, active since the late 1970s, is also one of its most highly decentralized. The GAI began as an alliance of loosely organized cells whose leaders were in contact with one another. The majority of the cells developed after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat released many members of the nonviolent Muslim Brotherhood who had been imprisoned during Nasser's reign. Members who rejected the MB's nonviolent stance fragmented off into a variety of violent Islamist groups. The larger organization's spiritual leader is Sheikh Umar Abd al-Rahman, but his influence has been lessened since his lifelong incarceration in the United States in 1996 for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The Group conducted a number of attacks on Egyptian security forces, government officials in Egypt, Coptic Christians, and on other perceived Egyptian opponents of Islam. GAI also claimed responsibility for the June 1995 attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia.
The group's founders, who are serving prison sentences in Egypt, first called for a ceasefire in 1997 and again in 1999. The 1997 ceasefire led to a split in the organization into two independent, sometimes warring factions. Mustafa Hamza's faction supports the ceasefire, but the other, led by Rifa'i Ahmad, is believed to be responsible for ordering his radical faction to massacre a group of tourists at Luxor within months of the 1997 call for ceasefire. Ahmad's faction was based in Afghanistan and has been identified as having close links with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which uses its website to condemn ceasefire initiatives advocated by moderate GAI leaders. The group's March 1999 ceasefire was somewhat more successful, but Sheikh Rahman rescinded his support for the cease-fire in June 2000.
Senior members of the radical faction signed Usama Bin Laden's fatwa in February 1998 calling for attacks against the United States, and since 2000, a number of GAI cells have targeted Coptic Christians in Egypt. Ahmad published a 2001 book in which he justifies mass casualty terrorist attacks. He seems to have disappeared since then and his current whereabouts are unknown. The radical faction was targeted by US-led attacks on Afghanistan after 9/11 and what remained of the faction is believed to have dispersed into Pakistan and various outlying regions, but may have regrouped. In March 2002, members of the group's moderate leadership declared the use of violence misguided and renounced its future use, prompting denunciations by much of the leadership abroad.
For members still dedicated to violent jihad, the main goal is the overthrow of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak and the establishment of an Islamist state in Egypt. Since allying themselves with al-Qaeda however, the faction likely has broader objectives, including attacks on the US.
These data were collected for the Terrorism Knowledge Base® (TKB®), managed by the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) until March 2008. START has neither reviewed nor verified these data, but is presenting this information as a service to the homeland security community.
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