Sumam Azzam
History
Causes of War – The Algerian Civil War With France
Summary of Evidence
The Algerian Civil War with France included the use of military tactics of
Guerrilla Warfare. This tactic was used to mainly ambush the French territories. It was a
sneaky way of approaching their target without them being recognized, therefore giving
them the advantage of having the first strike. (Compton’s, A – Anh, 303)
Like most of the strikes they involve using specific weapons, different ambushes
require different strikes and arms. In terms of the armed Islamists, they had the advantage
of unintentional boost in their economic resources as managers of import-export
companies(Journal, by Mouloud Feraoun). And that made them have more choices with
the use of different weapons, the more weapons the more damage impact and the more
territories to ambush. The Armed Islamic Group (GIA) were known to being the biggest
and most violent consisting of about 1,2500 members. By 1956 France had committed
more than 400,000 troops to Algeria. Although the elite airborne units and the Foreign
Legion received particular notoriety, approximately 170,000 of the regular French army
troops in Algeria were Muslim Algerians, most of them volunteers. (Ralph Zuljan)
Some uses of these weapons apply to different methods in the war. The methods
that were used in the Algerian Civil War with France had suicide bombers, secular death
squads, assassinations, snipers, and murdering of foreigners. But the main tactic that
dominated all the other tactics in war was the Guerilla Warfare, more than seven years of
war was dominated by this tactic involving guerilla strikes, terror attacks, and fights
between the active armies. The undeclared war between security forces and the guerrillas
has left over 50,000 Algerians dead. (Algerian War, Douglas Porch)
Civilians were involved in this war as being the victims of the war’s outcome. There are
French troops that doused a 15 year old boy in gasoline and burned him alive, and
telephone wires were cut in some cities like Algiers and Oran. (Shawn McHale) Algerian
troops massacred civilians while disguised as rebels, shot suspects dead in cold blood and
tortured rebels to death during the war. The French on the other side used torture to
interrogate their victims, and use bombs to terrorize Muslims. The torture involved the
water-boarding to the electric shocks on the genitals, and in the numerous massacres.(
Irwin Wall) Algeria was internationally sided with the Muslims and the French were
there to also spread Christianity leading to greater conflicts in the war.
The involvement of other countries gave some support to the Algerians, the emirs
in Algeria took their cues from the jihadist tradition represented by the Egyptian Sayyid
Qutb and his disciples. These would be considered part of the assisting Islamic groups.
However, the indigenous Jewish population in Algeria joined the Christian side making
the authorities close FIS (Front Islamique du Salut) -affiliated mosques and interrogate
individuals deemed suspicious of being a Muslim, often picking them up off the street.
(U.S Library of Congress)
Sumam Azzam
History
Bibliography:
-Compton’s, A – Anh
- Encyclopedia of the Modern, Middle East, and North America (Second Edition)
- Algeria-Watch
- Journal, by Mouloud Feraoun
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- International Herald Tribune, News
-(Algerian War, Douglas Porch)
http://www.historystudycenter.com/search/displayMultiResultReferenceItem.do?M
ulti=yes&ResultsID=11D51EC5050&fromPage=search&ItemNumber=5&QueryNa
me=reference
-(U.S Library of Congress)
http://countrystudies.us/algeria/22.htm
-Wall, Irwin. "Review Essay." 2006. 1 Dec 2008
<http://216.239.59.132/search?q=cache:VI4FArE2YKYJ:www.hnet.org/~diplo/essays/PDF/WallHorne.pdf+Alistair+Horne+A+Savage+War+of+Peace&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=qa>.
-Zuljan, Ralph. "Algerian War of Independence 1954-1962." Armed Conflict Events
Data. 27.11.2003. On War. 1 Dec 2008
<http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/algeria1954.htm>.
-McHale, Shawn. "Torture Didn't Work for the French in Algeria Either." HNN - History
News Network 21.6.2004 1 Dec 2008 <http://hnn.us/articles/5458.html>.