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The Armed Islamic Group's History
The first round of Algeria's 1991 legislative
elections resulted in a decisive victory for the fundamentalist party
known as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). Before the results could
be enacted, Algeria's military establishment negated the results and
put in place its own puppet government. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
began its campaign the following year.
Throughout the 1990s the group, along with other Islamic groups, engaged
in a wide-reaching civil war with the military-backed secular government,
with all sides committing horrendous atrocities. Estimates of total
deaths range from 60 to 100 thousand.
In 1998 a faction of the GIA, The Salafi Group for Call and Combat
(GSPC) broke off from the main organization. According to the US State
Department's 2000 Patterns of Global Terrorism Report, this new faction
may have eclipsed the original one in its capabilities. The GSPC claims
to limit its attacks on civilian targets, though recent attacks dispute
this assertion.
In 1999 the newly elected president Abdelaziz Bouteflika initiated
a campaign to neutralize the country's fundamentalist groups. He pardoned
several thousand jailed militants and offered amnesty to members of
opposition groups. The GIA's main Islamist rival, the previously mentioned
FIS, agreed to the cease fire, and as a result the GIA has become
somewhat isolated, though it picked up some new members from the defunct
FIS. |
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What's Next:
Connected
Groups
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