In the late 1980s, mounting economic hardship, widespread corruption, and growing public frustration pushed Algeria toward political opening after decades of single-party rule. Mass protests forced the regime to introduce multiparty politics, allowing Islamist movements to gain rapid popular support. When the military intervened to cancel the 1991 elections to prevent an Islamist victory, the country descended into a brutal civil war. Throughout the 1990s, armed groups and state forces fought a conflict marked by massacres, disappearances, and terror, leaving tens of thousands dead. The violence reshaped Algerian society and reinforced the dominance of the military-backed state, even as the conflict formally subsided by the early 2000s.