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Armed Islamic Group |
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Armed Islamic GroupFrench Groupe Islamique Armée (GIA)Algerian militant group. It was formed in 1992 after the government nullified the likely victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in 1991 legislative elections and was fueled by the repatriation of numerous Algerian Islamists who had fought in the Afghan War (1978–92). The GIA began a series of violent, armed attacks against the government and against foreigners in Algeria and has been accused of civilian massacres—although it has been alleged that many such atrocities were committed by security-service infiltrators and special military units. It has also engaged in attacks abroad (particularly in France) and purportedly maintained links with militant Islamic groups throughout the world. Estimates of GIA strength have varied from hundreds to several thousand guerrillas. |
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| Through its training camps and discreet networking around the world, the group weaved throughout the 1990s a complex web linking together businessmen, clerics, fighters, journalists and criminals, some of whom belonged to terrorist groups such as the Algerian Groupe Islamique Arme, Indonesia's Jemaa Islamiya or Pakistan's Jaish-e-Muhammad. This occurred with the rise of the Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) in Algeria and the Gama at Islami in Egypt both of which expanded Islamist insurgency even as the organizations became more decentralized into cells. BECAUSE OF its support for the Algerian military junta, which in 1992 cancelled the second round of elections when the first round had shown an extraordinary push from an Islamic coalition, France became the target of a loose confederation of neo-salafi terrorist networks built around a small group of former Algerian volunteers to the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and united in an organization named Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA). |
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