Islamic Terrorism in Egypt: The Challenge and the Response

On November 17, 1997, Islamic fundamentalists, armed with assault rifles, attacked tourist groups in the courtyard of the famous Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor. Sixty-eight people were killed in the massacre, fifty-eight of them foreign tourists. The terrorist attack, which was carried out by the largest Muslim terrorist organization in Egypt–Islamic Group (al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya)–inflicted a severe blow to Egyptian tourism, caused significant damage to the national economy, scarred the image of the regime and halt the declining trend of terrorism in recent years.