Database: Identifiers of Designated Islamic Terrorist Organizations

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya

Designated as terrorist by: Canada, European Union, United Kingdom, United States

Base of operations: Egypt

Background: Council on Foreign Relations
Background: U.S. Department of State

Formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya ("the Islamic Group") was once Egypt's largest militant organization. Seeking to install an Islamic government and remove Western influence from Egypt, it took part in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, plotted to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in 1995, and carried out the massacre at Luxor that left 58 foreign tourists, including 36 from Switzerland, dead in 1997. One faction has held back from violence in recent years and gone into politics, founding the Building and Development party that won 13 seats in the 2011 parliamentary elections. But other members have vowed to keep up the fight, with some even joining al-Qaeda. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya's "spiritual leader" Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison. His supporters have called for attacks in the event of his death behind bars.

Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya Emblem