Based in Egypt, the Islamic Liberation Organization was a fundamentalist Sunni terrorist group that emerged as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of the Islamic-Israeli Six Day War in 1967. The stated purpose of the Salafist gang was the overthrow Arab regimes that ruled without sufficient adherence to the teachings of Islam. They derived this objective from reading the earliest Islamic scriptures which clearly tell Muslims to fight and kill any Muslim who is insufficiently committed to jihad or who supports the exercise of free will in religion or politics.
This basic Qur'anic and Hadith teaching regarding choice and jihad was actively espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and their spiritual leader, Sayyid Qutb. His fundamentalist Islamic teaching emphasized the concept of jahiliyya, which asserts that all regimes which ignore "guidance from Allah" should be forcibly ousted.
By following Muhammad's example and Allah's orders, the Islamic Liberation Organization, whose very name was an oxymoron, also targeted the United States because the nation was primarily Christian and Israel, because they were primarily Jews - representing the people and faiths Allah called "infidels." Inspired by the academic Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Liberation Organization was mostly composed of college students and recent graduates. The median age of their membership was 22.
This 1974 ILO attack on Egypt was designed to bring about a general mass uprising, after which the jihadists would assassinate Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Their intent was to proclaim Egyptian an Islamic state and elevate Muslim clerics to leadership roles in government. Instead, the Egyptian government executed two of the Islamic Liberation Organization's leaders and arrested 30 members, setting the group back significantly. Their next attack would not take place until 1985, when ILO members kidnapped four Russians in retaliation for Soviet support of the Syrian "annihilation of Muslims in Tripoli," evidently confused over tensions between Syrian-sponsored Christians and PLO-backed Muslims in Northern Lebanon.
Today, ILO members have been absorbed into other Salafist groups as the region has gradually succumbed to the rising tide of fundamentalist Islam.
