Anwar Sadat

On October 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was gunned down by Islamic Jihad conspirators disguised as soldiers during the annual Victory Day parade in Cairo. Sadat had radically transformed Middle Eastern diplomacy by visiting Jerusalem and signing the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, alienating Arab allies and enraging domestic religious militants. His assassination did not undo the peace agreement with Israel, but it ushered in the thirty-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak governed under an unrelenting state of emergency, repressing Islamist movements while keeping Egypt anchored as a pillar of Western security strategy in the region.