the other Gulf monarchies. Al-Ghazali issuing a number of fatawa (Islamic judicial rulings) favorable to positions taken by local "radical" imams. Another Islamist, Mustafa Bouyali, a "gifted inflammatory preacher" and veteran of the Algerian independence struggle, called for the application of the sharia and creating of an Islamic state by jihad. After persecution by the security services in 1982 he founded the underground Mouvement Islamique Armé (MIA), "a loose association of tiny groups", with himself as amir. His group carried out a series of "bold attacks" against the regime and was able to continue its fight for five years before Bouyali was killed in February 1987. Also in the 1980s, several hundred youth left Algeria for camps of Peshawar to fight jihad in Afghanistan. As Algeria was a close ally of the jihadists enemy the Soviet Union, these jihadists tended to consider the Afghan jihad a "prelude" to jihad against the Algerian FLN state. After the Marxist government in Afghanistan fell, many of the Salafist-Jihadis returned to Algeria and supported the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and later the GIA insurgents. During and after the 1988 October Riots Islamists "set about building bridges to the young urban poor". Evidence of their effectiveness was that the riots "petered out" after meetings between the President Chadli Bendjedid and Islamists Ali Benhadj and members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The FLN government responded to the riots by amending the Algerian Constitution on 3 November 1988, to allow parties other than the ruling FLN to operate legally. A broad-based Islamist party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was born shortly afterwards in Algiers on 18 February 1989, and came into legal existence in September 1989. The front was led by two men. Abbassi Madani—a professor at University of Algiers and ex-independence fighter—represented a relatively moderate religious conservatism and symbolically connected the party to the Algerian War of Independence, the traditionally emphasized source of the ruling FLN's legitimacy. His aim was to "Islamise the regime without altering society's basic fabric." Ali Benhadj, a charismatic preacher and high school teacher appealed to a younger and less educated class. An impassioned orator, he was known for his ability to both enrage or calm at will the tens of thousands of young hittiestes who came to hear him speak. However, his radical speeches and opposition to democratic rule alarmed non-Islamists and feminists. Neither Madani or Benhadj were committed to democracy. In