Word: casbah
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...matter how glamorous Charles Boyer made it seem, the Casbah in Algiers is a squalid slum overpopulated by 80,000 natives, where pimps and petty thieves dart about labyrinthian alleyways, secret passages and connecting rooftops. It is also a prime hideout for terrorists of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). From its recesses they fan out to plant bombs, stab and shoot, wreaking vengeance on Frenchman and moderate Arab alike. So far this year their bombs have killed 47 civilians, wounded 263 others; as a result, anyone now entering a bus. store or cinema in Algiers is automatically searched...
Despite wholesale roundups and roughhousing "routine checks" on the entire male population of the Casbah, the French have never managed to dominate its inner fastnesses. Last week they announced proudly that the trick had been done. Helped by hooded native informers, the French claim to have arrested the top men in FLN's justice, medical, propaganda and intelligence sections in Algiers. All are under 30. Last week French paratroopers found the trail of two of FLN's top terrorists-Mourad, 27, a mechanic turned bombmaker, and Ramel, 26, a 250-lb. onetime Zouave in the French army...
...Casbah. Hot-tempered students and war veterans ordered a general protest strike. Roaming the city in small commando units, some on motor scooters with girl friends behind, they forced shopkeepers out of stores, stopped buses and trolleys, ordering passengers to descend, poured into post offices, telling employees to quit or be beaten up. Police looked on. The riot fever reached its peak following the burial of Singer Carmen Ramos. Some 1,500 teen-agers started back to town after the ceremony, shouting "Algeria is French!"-"Death to the Assassins!" Joined by other Europeans-gangs of poor Italians and Spaniards from...
...reform program). On the other hand, it has driven Algeria's million Frenchmen to a frenzy of resentment and counterterror. Typical were the riots provoked by the assassination in Algiers of Patrol Sergeant Camille le Prial, which last week brought more than a hundred paratroopers smashing through the casbah and resulted in the death of three Moslems, a score injured. Such incidents work to the advantage of the rebels by creating in metropolitan France what the French themselves acknowledge to be a crise de conscience...
...south, the snow-capped Atlas Mountains soar 14,000 ft. above arid desert. Its cities range from modern Casablanca (pop. 700,000) with its bustling port and gleaming white apartment buildings, to the walled Arab city of Fez (pop. 180,000) with its ancient university buildings and its twisting casbah streets too narrow for automobiles, to the sprawling desert town of Marrakech (pop. 215,000) where ragged Berbers bring their camels to market, and snake charmers pitch their brown tents in the city square...