The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) emerged from the conflict which followed independent Algeria's first governmental transition. After gaining independence from France in 1962, the country was ruled by the Front de Liberation National (FLN) or National Liberation Front, the party which led the decolonization struggle. Social unrest increased in the 1980s amid economic decline, and after a series of youth riots in the late 1980s the FLN allowed the country's first multiparty elections. The Islamic Salvation Front - Front Islamique du Salut or FIS, a coalition of moderate and radical Islamists, won the first round of the vote in 1991, but the second round and the rest of the election was annulled because the military did not wish to see such a government formed, and supported a coup to prevent them going ahead. The FIS was then banned.

Following the annulment of the 1992 elections, the military wing of the FIS took up arms against the government. They aimed to achieve by force the power they had been denied, and to establish an Islamic state. The group is focused on local objectives in Algeria and has little interest in al Qaeda-style global holy war. Several splinter factions formed, including the GIA in December 1992, and began to wage violent attacks on the government and its security forces. While the FIS militants specifically refer to the annulment of the elections as the major factor, the GIA sees itself as Muslims fighting infidels and apostates, not specially an illegitimate government.¹ From 1992 to 1998 violence reached civil war status, with a widely accepted figure of some 100,000 deaths, averaging 1,200 a month.

The State Department's annual Patterns of Global Terrorism has listed the strength of the group for some years as a vague "several hundred to several thousand." Another source gives the GIA strength of 700.² , while the respected International Institute for Strategic Studies gives a figure of less than 1,500 in small groups, 50-100 strong each. ³

The organization has had a number of known leaders. Mourad Sid Ahmed, alias Djafaar al-Afghani, was its first leader, formerly a mujaheddin fighter in Afghanistan. He was shot in Algiers by Algerian security on Feb. 26, 1994. Nine others were shot in the incident. Ahmed Abu Abdallah, or Sherif Ghousmi, became head of GIA after the death of Mourad Sid Ahmed. Reportedly, only 26-year-old, he was killed by Algerian security forces on Sept. 26, 1994. ⁴ Djamel Zitouni then became head of the group until he was killed in factional fighting within the group in July 1996. Under Zitouni, the GIA hijacked an Air France flight to Algiers in December 1994, and mounted a series of bombings in France in 1995. He was succeeded by Anter Zowabri, former head of the GIA's Green Battalion and considered the most extremist leader of an armed Islamic group in Algeria. Zouabri was killed by Algerian security forces on Feb. 8, 2002, in the midst of a gun battle at Boufarik, near the capital Algiers. On April 15, 2002, the group named its new leader, Rachid Oukali, alias Abou Tourab. The group's killings mostly occur in the rural regions of Algeria, touching the capital less. Its base or headquarters has been variously reported as being in Algiers or around Blida.

The GIA told all foreigners to leave the country under threat of death in 1993, and since September that year the GIA has been accused of killing over 100 foreign nationals. However, while the GIA particularly targets former colonial ruler France and other foreigners, frequent attacks occur against Algerian civilians, including journalists. Often whole villages have been wiped out. These attacks are mounted on a large scale: at one point in 2000, officials put the rate of killings at 300 a month, ⁵ and nearly 630 people have been killed so far in 2002. ⁶ However, the government and its security forces may be partially responsible for some of the violence, as they have been repeatedly accused of infiltrating and directing GIA attacks in order to weaken popular support for Islamists by continuing the trail of violence.⁷

U.S. assets connected to the group were suspended by President Bush in late 2001. At the same time, it was reported that several GIA members were located in North America. .⁸ There are also thought to be at least several hundred Algerian Islamic militants outside Algeria. The future of the movement is linked to the slow development of Algerian politics, as the country is still controlled to a significant degree, behind the scenes, by the military. The lessening of such control might reduce the incentives for armed resistance to the government and brutal attacks on the population, but at present, that day seems far off.

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