Word: wilayas
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Dates: during 1962-1962
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...Algiers, TIME Correspondent James Wilde watched the war begin. Cabled Wilde: "The regular army, trained in Tunisia, rode in Skoda trucks, wore uniforms made in Red China, packed Czech submachine guns, Russian recoilless rifles and Chinese-made mortars. Against them were ranged a motley collection of lightly armed Wilaya 4 guerrillas, most of them hardly more than boys. Though the regulars were plainly holding back their superior firepower at Boghar, heavy fighting took place near mountainous Aumale, about 60 miles to the east, where determined guerrillas could have stopped Ben Bella's forces for months if they had wished...
...Real Independence." In Algiers itself, meanwhile, militiamen loyal to the Politburo surged out of hiding and seized control of the casbah in rooftop fighting. From Oran, where lie had fled four days earlier to avoid arrest by Wilaya 4 troops, Ahmed ben Bella slipped into Algiers, dressed in woman's clothing. There, in return for a ceasefire, Rebel Leader Colonel Hassan agreed to evacuate the city and to confine his routed, discredited forces to one of the suburbs...
Garrison Joys. Though he had temporarily disposed of one opponent, Ben Bella had plenty left. The rugged Berber guerrillas of Wilaya 3 were still holding out in the impregnable mountains of Kabylia. led by hard-bitten Belkacem Krim. who negotiated the Evian agreements with France and may still have the power to oust Ben Bella. Also ranged against Ben Bella is the bulk of organized labor in Algeria, led by realistic unionists such as Ali Yahia, an ex-schoolteacher who believes that living standards can be maintained only through cooperation with France. Even more bitterly opposed to the Politburo...
...Houari Boumedienne, commander of the regular army (see box). In borrowed French helicopters, Ben Bella had to fly twice to the front lines to get Boumedienne to agree to the ceasefire. There was an ''acrimonious" meeting at Orleansville, where Boumedienne argued bitterly against the deal made with Wilaya 4 just as he was at the point of breaking through the rebel defenses. The regular army, he declared, was being cheated of its triumphal entry into Algiers, where his officers anticipated fat political jobs and his men dreamed of the soft garrison life. Boumedienne got his way, and this...
...fighting trim with diversionary attacks on the French army's fortified defense lines across the border, but his troops took no part in the bitter war in Algeria itself. Thus the army's losses were trifling compared with those of the guerrilla fighters in the Algerian wilayas. Boumedienne is detested by wilaya leaders, who say that he starved them of sorely needed weapons that were lavished on his private troops. "One has one's attachments." Boumedienne answers. "Mine is the army." With stubborn idealism that is ironically reminiscent of many French officers, Boumedienne asserts that the comradeship...