Egyptian Islamic Jihad

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Arabic: الجهاد الإسلامي المصري‎) (EIJ), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad (الجهاد الإسلامي and Liberation Army for Holy Sites) originally referred to as "al-Jihad," and then "the Jihad Group", or "the Jihad Organization", is an Egyptian Islamist group active since the late 1970s. It is under worldwide embargo by the United Nations as an affiliate of al-Qaeda. It is also banned by several individual governments including that of the Russian Federation. Between 1991 and 2011, it has been led by Ayman al-Zawahiri. The group has backed an Egyptian political party called the Peace and Development Party.

The organization's original primary goal was to overthrow the Egyptian Government and replace it with an Islamic state. Later it broadened its aims to include attacking United States and Israeli interests in Egypt and abroad.

EIJ has suffered setbacks as a result of numerous arrests of operatives worldwide, most recently in Lebanon and Yemen. In June 2001, al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad (which had been associated with each other for many years) merged into "Qaeda al-Jihad".

ther lenient in the ensuing trial". In prison, the Cairenes and Saidis reverted into two factions, the Cairo militants later becoming the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and the Saidis later forming the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Group. According to Zawahiri, the EIJ was "different from the Takfir wal Hijra group as we do not consider people infidels because of their sins. And we are different from the Muslim Brotherhood because sometimes they do not oppose the government".

The leader of the Cairo militants was Abbud al-Zumar, "a onetime army intelligence officer serving a life sentence for his part in the plot to kill Sadat". This faction, the Islamic Jihad, "was small and tightly disciplined".

Most of the middle-rank members were discharged from prison after only three years and fled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to help the mujahideen there and escape persecution at home.