Muslim militants attempting to bring down the government in Egypt struck again in
November 1997, with terrorists killing 58 tourists at the ancient sites of Luxor. Similar, if less deadly, attacks have been regular events since the Islamic insurgency took its current form in 1992.
Militants have targeted tourists for attack in an apparent attempt to destabilize a key source of income for the government of long-time President Hosni Mubarak.
More than 1,100 people have been killed during the five-year campaign of violence,
including militants, police officers and minority Coptic Christians. A government
crackdown on extremists in the mid-1990s provoked protests from human rights groups, who said that official tactics were brutal and often indiscriminate.
Egypt's ground-breaking official relations with the Jewish state of Israel are but one of many Mubarak government policies that militants would like to reverse through the creation of an Islamic state.
Land and People | History |
| Travel | Financial | Weather
DEMOGRAPHICS
- Population:
- 64,791,891
- Average life span:
- 60 male, 64 female
- Average income ($US):
- $630
- GDP per capita ($US):
- $2,760
- Literacy rate:
- 51%
THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE
- Capital:
- Cairo
- Size:
- 386,900 square miles (1,002,000 square km)
- Government type:
- Republic
- Political leaders:
- President Hosni Mubarak
- Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri
- Religions:
- Muslim (94%, mostly Sunni); Coptic Christian and others (4%)
- Languages:
- Arabic (official); English; French
MODERN HISTORY
- 4000 BC -- earliest archaeological records
- 3200-341 BC -- Rule of the Pharoahs
- 341 BC -- conquered by Persia
- 332 BC -- conquered by Alexander the Great
- 48 BC -- Cleopatra, with help from her lover Julius Caesar, takes power.
- 30 BC -- Egypt becomes a Roman province after Cleopatra and her lover-ally, defeated Roman ruler Marc Antony, commit suicide.
- 641-1517 -- Arab caliph rule
- 1517 -- becomes part of Turkish Ottoman empire
- 1798-1801 -- Napoleonic occupation
- 1882-1922 -- British occupation (becomes protectorate in 1914)
- 1922 -- Egyptian independence (monarchy)
- 1953 -- Monarchy abolished; republic established
- 1967 -- Six-day war with Israel
- 1973 -- Yom Kippur war with Israel
- 1981 -- President Anwar Sadat assassinated
- 1992 -- Muslim militants begin a campaign of violence intended to overthrow the secular government and create an Islamic state.
- 1979 -- Egypt and Israel end 30 years of war with an official peace treaty.
- 1991 -- Egypt supports Allied forces in the Persian Gulf War.
- 1994 -- Islamic militants stab and wound Naguib Mafouz, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature.
- 1995 -- President Mubarak survives assassination attempt while visiting Ethiopia; Egypt blames Sudan for the attack.
FINANCIAL
- Monetary unit:
- Pound
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CNN WEATHER INFORMATION
- Forecasts:
- --Cairo
- --Giza
- --Luxor
- Forecast and satellite maps:
- --Africa forecast map
- --Middle East satellite image
- --Africa satellite image