Word: krim
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...1920s, Abd el Krim was a glamorous name on the world's front pages. A smallish, dark-skinned man with gentle eyes and a fringelike beard, he led his Riff tribesmen in the last romantic war of this century. In the U.S., the vision of Krim's snow-white turban, flowing djella-bah and spirited Arabian steed was put to music by Sigmund Romberg in Broadway's The Desert Song. In North Africa, his tenacious struggle against the armies of France and Spain sent a throb of nationalism through the Arab world...
Closed Cave. Born in the Riff mountains of northern Morocco, educated at a Spanish school in Melilla, a quiet employee of the Spanish Moroccan administration until he was 38, Krim became a rebel when the Spanish broke the peace with the Riff tibesmen by seizing the holy city of Xauen. In the subsequent fighting, Krim was captured and his father killed. Escaping from the Spanish prison in Melilla, Krim broke his leg and ever after walked with a pronounced limp. Gaining the safety of the mountains, he rallied the Riffs for a jihad against Spain...
Arrogant in victory, Krim next challenged the French and was finally overwhelmed by a combined Franco-Spanish army of 300,000 men led by Marshal Henri Petain, which blasted his mountain strongholds with artillery and bombs until Krim at last surrendered in May 1926. The Spanish army, one of whose officers was Generalissimo Francisco Franco, wanted Krim executed, but the French more gallantly shipped him off to exile on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean...
There, consoled by his two favorite wives and a monthly pension of $1,500, Krim languished for 21 years. In 1947 France relented and let Krim board a ship for the Riviera, where he would be under house arrest. The 65-year-old rebel jumped ship as it was passing through the Suez Canal, and was granted political asylum in Egypt...
Spurned Fortune. In Cairo, under Nasser's protection, Krim worked with other North African exiles for the independence of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. But he was disgusted by the terms on which freedom was won; he claimed they were too favorable to France. His Francophobia deepened with the years, and in 1957 he warned the U.S. against relying on France to defend Europe, adding querulously: "I don't know why the world doesn't catch on to those French-they're stupid, weak, stubborn and selfish." After Morocco won its independence. King Mohammed V tried...