State Security Investigations Service
| مباحث أمن الدولة | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1913 1954 |
| Dissolved | 2011 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Government of Egypt |
| Headquarters | Cairo, Egypt |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Ministry of Interior |
The State Security Investigations Service (Egyptian Arabic: مباحث أمن الدولة Mabahith Amn El Dawla) was the highest national internal security authority in Egypt. Estimated to employ 100,000 personnel, the SSI was the main security and intelligence apparatus of Egypt's Ministry of Interior. The SSI focused on monitoring underground networks of radical Islamists and probably planted agents in those organizations and had the role of controlling opposition groups, both armed groups and those engaged in peaceful opposition to the government.
Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the head of the SSI was arrested under suspicion of ordering the killings of demonstrators. On March 15, 2011, the Ministry of the Interior announced the dissolution of the agency. The service was replaced by Egyptian Homeland Security.
Originally formed during the colonial era in 1913 as the Intelligence wing of the National Police, the service was reformed and reorganized following the Revolution of 1952 to suit the security concerns of the new socialist regime. The State Security apparatus was made a separate branch of the Interior Ministry, separate from the regular Police command, and was focused intensively on political threats to the State's security, particularly those emanating from Islamist, Liberal or far-Left opposition sources. The State Security was made independent of the Police Command and given legal powers of arrest, detention, and prosecution. Separate State Security Courts were set up to prosecute detainees arrested by the SSIS, separately from the regular prosecution judiciary. The first Chief of the SSIS was the Police Brigadier Ayman Mahfoud, an ex-Army officer who had become a Police officer and a part of the Free Officers' Movement of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
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