The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was initially created as a network of small, informal mosque groups. After Algerian constitutional reforms allowed the creation of political parties for the first time, the FIS filed for legal recognition and was certified as a political party in September 1989. The group won more than 50% of the votes during municipal elections in June 1990.  In March 1991, a new electoral law proposed expanding the number of seats in Parliament from 295 to 542, clearly favoring regions in which the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), "the main Algerian political party," had strong support. In response, the FIS called for a general strike, which over several days, lead to escalating violence between militants and the security forces, and an eventual imposition of martial law.  The threat of jihad against the army prompted them to arrest Abassi al Madani and his second-in-command, Ahmed Belhadj, on charges of conspiracy against the state. An additional 700 or so Islamists were soon taken into custody, joining some 2300 others already imprisoned.  <P> When elections were held in December 1991, the FIS again surprised the secular parties by winning 44% of the Parliamentary seats (188 of 430 contested seats), while the FLN won only 15.  Of the remaining 199 seats to be decided in the second round of elections (the second round decides those seats in which no candidate received a clear majority of the votes during the first round), the FIS was the leading party for 144 (i.e., although they did not receive more than 50% of the votes in that constituency, they still received more votes than their opponents in the first round).  Fearing an Islamist takeover of the government, the Army canceled the second round of elections scheduled for January 1992, removed the President from office, appointed a five-member High Council of State, made the FIS illegal and arrested many of its leaders.  <P><br /><br />Although FIS leadership initially remained ambiguous about the use of violence by its followers, imprisoned deputy leader Belhadj endorsed the armed struggle and indicated unity with an explicitly violent group, Abdelkader Chebouti's Mouvement Islamique Arme (MIA) in January of 1993.  A breakdown in an attempted dialogue between the regime and the FIS in late 1993 led a number of senior FIS leaders to defect to the more extreme Groupe Islamique Armee.  To counter the influence of the GIA, the FIS officially created an armed wing in July of 1994, the Arme Islamiques du Salut (AIS), although this name had been used since 1993 to refer to the variety of armed groups loyal to the FIS.  Although the FIS distanced itself from the GIA's civilian massacres, a January 1995 car bomb at the police headquarters in Algiers killed forty-two people and injured 286.  In September of 1997, the FIS declared a ceasefire and in July of 1999, a new Algerian government formed an accord with the FIS and issued an amnesty for several thousand AIS guerrillas.  FIS leaders Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj were released from prison in 2003.