Newspaper Article

Algeria was worse than Iraq - so far

Keegan, John

2006

Overview

Though they could win local successes, they could not stop the ANL from mounting attacks. Following a number of judicial executions, the ANL launched a wave of killings of French civilians in Algiers, the worst outrage so far. In retaliation, Paris ordered General Massu to take over the Arab quarter of the city with his 10th Parachute Division. Massu was a famed fighter and veteran of Indo-China. Between January and March 1957, Massu's Paras terrorised the casbah into pacifity. Torture was widely used and in the end the ANL gave up because its counter-terrorism could not carry the Arab population with it. From his return to power in May 1958 until the departure of the French in July 1962, events in Algeria and France continued to be as turbulent as in the previous four years of war. The ANL launched a bloody campaign of terror inside France. The Algerian colonists took to open rebellion against France and succeeded in winning several of the leading French generals of Algeria to their side. France was threatened with invasion by military rebels. Moreover, de Gaulle's grant of independence to Algeria did not bring a lasting peace to that country. The unrecognised power of Islam came into play against what was essentially a secular Algerian revolutionary government, leading to outbreaks of terrible civilian violence in 1992, which were to persist into the 21st century. No one would wish the history of Algeria on the suffering people of Iraq.

• Publisher: Postmedia Network Inc
• Subject: Horne, Alistair