Word: biskra
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Into the Saharan oasis town of Biskra rolled a cautious column of halftracks loaded with olive-uniformed Algerian troops. Spears of sunlight flashed from the lenses of binoculars as nervous officers searched the streets for signs of the enemy. But the town was empty of armed opposition, and all eyes lifted to the sere, sawback massif that reared beyond. Up there, among the blue defiles of the Aures Mountains, waited the latest defector from Premier Ahmed ben Bella's socialist paradise, and with him were 9,000 well-armed veterans ready for resistance, rebellion or death...
...tough as he was in the cities, Ben Bella faced a much more difficult prospect in the mountains. At week's end, as government troops sat nervously in Biskra, and occupied the isolated towns of Bou-Saada and Djelfa as well, it was clear that Chaabani is as safe in the Aures heights as Ait Ahmed is in the Kabylia. Both know their high redoubts inside out. And a punitive expedition mounted by Ben Bella could lead to a long guerrilla war like the very one that gained Algeria its independence...
...cities. So far, peasant anger has been directed more at the "little village kings" and the overprivileged army than at Ben Bella himself. In the oasis village of Tolga last month, a furious crowd pummeled the mayor and the local F.L.N. political bosses, grabbed three buses and drove to Biskra to protest that the bosses had pocketed government relief funds. From Ouled Djellal and Ourellal come reports that hungry peasants have set fire to party headquarters and even liquidated some party bosses...