Islamic Glory Brigades in the Land of the Nile (Jihadi Entity, Egypt)

• Local Name: كتائب الفكر الإسلامي في أرض النيل
• Transliteration: Kata’eb al-Fakr al-Islami fi-Ard al-Nil
• Alternatives: N/a
• Status: 2005 – 2005 (Defeated)
• Conflicts: Islamist Militancy in Egypt

The Islamic Glory Brigades in the Land of the Nile [KFIAN; Kataeb al-Fakr al-Islami fi-Ard al-Nil] was a small Salafi jihadi module operating in Egypt’s capital region. It was based in Shubra el-Kheima, in the Qalyubiya governorate. The cell was headed by Ashraf Youssef and had about a dozen associates.¹ The KFIAN appeared to have acted on its own. There were no reports of links between the outfit and international jihadi organizations.

The KFIAN burst out of obscurity when one of its members blew himself up among tourists visiting the ancient Khan el-Khalil market in central Cairo on Apr. 07, 2005.² Two French citizens and an American were killed in the blast. The next day, the KFIAN asserted responsibility in a communiqué distributed on the internet.³ Egyptian authorities rounded up about thirty people over the course of the next days.⁴ Relatives of the suicide bomber and several acquaintances of the cell’s operatives were apprehended, but the outfit’s key members managed to evade arrest for weeks. On Apr. 29, security forces finally managed to capture ringleader Youssef.⁵ His deputy blew himself up as policemen tried to detain him as he was trying to plant a bomb on a busy square.⁶ Several people were hurt in the blast. Later that day, the militant’s fiancée and sister fired on a bus carrying tourists before committing suicide.⁷ About 200 persons were arrested in the immediate aftermath of these incidents.⁸ The vast majority of the people detained had nothing to do with the KFIAN.⁹ In early May 2005, one operative was arrested in Libya.¹⁰ Later that month, the group’s leader succumbed to his injuries after he had deliberately hit his head against the wall of a prison cell.¹¹