Anatomy of Egypt's Militant Islamic Groups: Methodological Note and Preliminary Findings

Abstract

Iran's Islamic Revolution seems to have taken the world by surprise. The Western mass media have subsequently been alarming their readers with warnings of Islamic “revival,” “resurgence,” “rumble,” and “anger.” Strategists and political practitioners have joined in – invariably using the same or more academic-sounding jargon, such as the “arc of trouble” or the “crescent of crisis.” The area referred to stretches from Morocco to Indonesia, where nearly 800 million Muslims live and in which some of the world's most strategic raw materials and real estate are located. The rising attention and the West' alarm are quite understandable and indeed quite justifiable. After all, most of that alleged anger is directed at the West and its local allies and surrogates - the Shah being a case in point. The seizure of the American embassy in Teheran along with some fifty hostages in November 1979 highlighted this deep-seated resentment. But in neighboring Afghanistan another chapter of the Islamic drama is unfolding - this, time in the form of a resistance to the Soviets and their local surrogates. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late December of 1979 compounded an already complicated situation. It plunged the world closer to the brink.