Religion in Algeria
Islam, the religion of almost all of the Algerian people, pervades most aspects of life. It provides the society with its central social and cultural identity and gives most individuals their basic ethical beliefs.
Salafi jihadism
In the Algerian Civil War 1992–1998, the GIA was one of the two major Islamist armed groups (the other being theArmee Islamique du Salut or AIS) fighting the Algerian army and security forces. The GIA included veterans of the Afghanistan jihad and unlike the more moderate AIS, fought to destabilize the Algerian government with terror attacks designed to "create an atmosphere of general insecurity". It considered jihad in Algeria "fard ayn" or an obligation for all (adult male sane) Muslims, and sought to "purge" Algeria of "the ungodly" and create an Islamic state. It pursued what Gilles Kepel called a "wholesale massacres of civilians", targeting French-speaking intellectuals, foreigners, and Islamists deemed too moderate, and took a campaign of bombing to France, which supported the Algerian government against the Islamists. Although over 150,000 were killed in the civil war, the GIA eventually lost popular support and was crushed by the security forces. Remnants of the GIA continued on as "Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat", which as of 2015 calls itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.