Egyptian Islamic Al-Jihad

Case study of terrorist group “Egyptian Islamic Al-Jihad”

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Abstract

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, commonly abbreviated as EIJ is an Islamic terror group seeking to overthrow the Egyptian government and install an Islamic state. More recently, the EIJ has broadened its goals to debilitating and attacking the capabilities and interests of U.S and Israel, in Egypt and in other countries. EIJ is led by Ayman al-Zawahiri since 1991, and the group has carried out numerous terror attacks through its militant cells. EIJ’s most prominent attack is the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. EIJ is considered a foreign terrorist group by the U.N. In the late nineties, EIJ had largely been eradicated from Egypt, but in 2001, the group merged with al-Qaeda, and it is now known as Qaeda al-Jihad. The command structure of al-Qaeda Jihad is centered on nine leadership seats. EIJ’s former leader al-Zawahiri is an acting commander of al-Qaeda. The group has been behind some of the most horrific terror attacks of the last two decades; the group has engineered many bombings and assassinations, which have killed many, most of them innocent people. The EIJ, in its turbulent wake leaves behind a legacy of wrath, pain and bloodshed.

Main Body

        The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) is also known as al-Gihad al-Islamic and Tanzim al-Jihad. Mhuammad Abd al-Salam Farraj founded EIJ in 1979 in Cairo, Egypt. Other notable leaders are al-Zawahiri, Col. Abbud el-Latif al Zumor and Khalid al-Islambouli. While all of EIJ’s armed operations have occurred in Egypt, EIJ is known to have maintained cells or placed operatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and throughout western Europe (Orr, 2003). Most of EIJ’s present leaders are believe to be located in Pakistan among and alongside the Maklis al-Shura of al-Qaeda.

Egypt has fought a lengthy and bloody war with radical Islam. From the era of the Egyptian monarchy to the current government, different Islamic groups, particularly the EIJ has constantly attempted to wrest control of the country from the secular nationalist and its allies. Nevertheless, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, political Islam was exposed to a relentless intellectual and ideological assault by an exceptional Egyptian blend of Arab socialism and nationalism, led by charismatic Nasser. But, in the humiliation of the 1967 war as well as the succession of Anwar Sadat to presidency in 1970 revived radical Islam. DeLong (2004) states that it is widely believed that the rise of political Islam was approved tacitly by Sadat who hoped to use radical Islam as a counterweight both against the more radical manifestations of communism and Nasserism. The time between Islamists and Sadat was short lived, particularly following the implementation of Sadat’s liberal economic policies and signing of the Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1979 (Orr, 2003). In reality, the peace treaty with Israel as well as Sadat’s enmity towards the Iranian Islamic revolution incensed EIJ and other Islamists to point that they plotted his assassination. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Islamic movement in Egypt was mainly led by the EIJ and al-Jama’a al-Islamiyaa. Zawahiri’s main goal was to topple the Egyptian government, even though he did not pay much attention to the Israeli Arab conflict. For Zawahiri and the EIJ, fighting the close enemy, that is, the Egyptian regime was more significant than fighting the far enemy that is, Israel and the West.