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Cairo (Arabic: القاهرة transliteration: Al-Qāhirah), which means "The Vanquisher" or "The Triumphant", is the capital city of Egypt. While Al-Qahirah is the official name of the city, in Egyptian Arabic it is typically called simply by the name of the country, Masr (مصر, Egypt).

The first city on the site, Old Cairo or Al-Fustat الفسطاط was founded in AD 648 near other Egyptian cities and villages, including the old Egyptian capital Memphis, Heliopolis, Giza and the Byzantine fortress of Babylon-in-Egypt. However, Fustat was itself a new city built as a military garrison for Arab troops and was the closest central location to Arabia that was accessible to the Nile. Fustat became a regional center of Islam during the Umayyad period and was where the Umayyad ruler, Marwan II, made his last stand against the Abbasids. Later, during the Fatimid era, Al-Qahira (Cairo) was officially founded in AD 969 as an imperial capital and it absorbed Fustat. During its history various dynasties would add suburbs to the city and construct important structures that became known throughout the Islamic world including the Al-Azhar mosque. Conquered by Saladin and ruled by Ayyubids starting in 1171, it remained an important center of the Muslim world.

Slave soldiers or Mamluks seized Egypt and ruled from their capital at Cairo from 1250 to 1517 when they were defeated by the Ottomans. Following Napoleon's brief occupation, an Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali made Cairo the capital of an independent empire that lasted from 1801 to 1882. The city came under British control until Egypt attained independence in 1922. Cairo remained an important city in the Arab world, and housed the headquarters of the League of Arab States.

With the formation of the Brotherhood of Nod and expansion of it's activity in Africa, Egypt together with Cairo became their stronghold and favored base of operations, soon after the GDI presence in the country was removed. Cairo became one of the sites where a Temple of Nod was erected, devoted to the research of Project ReGenesis. After the destruction of the Sarajevo Temple and apparent death of Kane, Cairo was one of the first areas to be reclaimed by GDI.

Eventually, the traitor general, Hassan, estabilished his command pyramid here, as he consolidated his power and governed Nod as GDI's puppet. However, when Anton Slavik rose to power and Kane reappeared, Nod reclaimed Cairo and estabilished Kane's main base here, on an island. This island housed the World Altering Missile launch facilities, Kane's pyramid and Temple of Nod. It was invaded in a daring and reckless raid by commander Michael McNeil, who prevented the launch of the missile by mere minutes. The Battle for Cairo happened there.

However, Nod did not simply let the area go into GDI hands. Instead, after the conclusion of the Firestorm Crisis and rebuilding efforts in Africa, Nod estabilished their rule firmly here and begun construction of a massive underground missile silo complex, which laid masked for many years until the fateful day in 2047, when the silo was activated and a nuclear missile was launched against the GDI orbital command centre, GDSS Philadelphia, obliterating it. After this, most of the masking nets and camouflage were removed and all launch operations transferred to a central, raised platform in order to speed up the loading times and launch cycles. The silo used to launch a missile against Philadelphia was shutdown and deactivated.

During the early stages of the Third Tiberium War, GDI invaded Egypt and destroyed the Cairo Nuclear Facility in retaliation for the destruction of Philadelphia. GDI troops razed Nod administrative facilities on the outskirts of Cairo, bringing Nod's long-time control of Egypt to an end.

Following the cataclysmic ending of the siege of Temple Prime, Cairo (and much of Egypt) was hit by the fallout and is classified as the R-1 Red Zone.