Information Access in Algeria

   

    The Algerian War of Independence was a prototype for modern insurgency and counterinsurgency. The war, lasting from 1954 to 1962, was also one of the most brutal examples of asymmetric warfare, terrorism, and the importance of information access in the past century.

     After the extreme repression of Muslim demonstrations on V.E. Day resulted in thousands of Algerian deaths, the Muslims of Algeria decided that there was no alternative to independence from France, and nationalists, radicals, intellectuals, and army deserters spent the better part of the next decade forging reliable human networks both internally and abroad before the newly formed FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) finally struck on November 1st, 1954. Despite the pressure from the Arabs and Kabyles of Algeria, France was adamant about remaining in Algeria,which contained a significant European population. The result was a bloody campaign of terrorism and insurgency and a response of heavy handed counterinsurgency, torture, and relocation.

    At the time, France seemed to have all of the advantages. Despite recent losses the French army was still considered one of the mightiest in the world, and it's special forces, paratroopers, and foreign legion, with experience in the Free French resistance, African campaigns, and Indo-China, were well prepared for insurgency and "pacification." The FLN was severely outnumbered, outgunned, and outclassed, yet had an almost the entire country as a safehaven and information access superiority. Algeria was excellent for insurgency, full of mountains and caves, natives with a strong tribal culture, a distrust of the government, and distinct languages and dialects. All that the French needed to crush the uprising was information parity, but they faced almost an entire nation of spies, informants, and irregulars for the FLN, working both within the Army in the form of Algerian troops, and in the towns and villages where the French operated. Despite stunning success in the few conventional confrontations of the war, France was losing its grip on Algeria.

    Among the most critical campaigns of the war was the Battle of Algiers, the fight for control of the capital and main city. After a series of bombings by FLN forces and French vigilantes, the Muslim residents declared an eight day general strike to win the attention of the U.N., which was in session debating colonialism. General Massu and his paratroopers had been called in to regain control of the city and used this opportunity to impose martial law , set up a check points, and shock the Casbah back into submissiveness. They first noted all of the Muslims striking, identified them as FLN supporters, then dragged virtually the entire Casbah to work at gunpoint to break the strike. Simultaneously, they went on a massive information gathering campaign, arresting and interrogating as much as 30-40% of the Casbah while imposing a curfew to prevent news of arrests from reaching the FLN so that information could be retrieved and more arrests made before the FLN leadership knew that they were at risk. Torture was endemic and, many would later say, institutionalized, and an estimated 3,000 Algerians simply disappeared. Yet this method had slight and mixed success. Though some intelligence was acquired and arrests made, for every insurgent captured ten Algerians were radicalized, steeling their resolve and allowing the FLN to constantly reorganize and rebuild.

    The French then switched tactics. They began relying heavily on double agents, spies, and informants of their own, known as Les Bleus because they were often disguised as manual laborers in denim jumpsuits, to conduct human network operations. Again, torture and imprisonment were prominent tools, used to frighten Algerians into cooperating. Yet the best operatives, agents, and sources, came to the French on their own out of a sense of betrayal by the FLN, fear of infighting, tribal and personal feuds, or simply to resist FLN terror, which was born more by the Muslims than Europeans of Algeria. Besides sharing secrets and helping the French better map the human and physical environment of Algiers, les Bleus would mill about the population in their innocuous disguises, gathering information, or infiltrate the FLN, sometimes rising to leadership ranks and poison the organization from the inside. The FLN soon crumbled within Algiers as first its bomb-makers then its leaders were apprehended.

    La Bleuite, as this strategy was colloquially known, was then exported into the rural insurgent strongholds where FLN operatives had safehavens of impunity among the villages and mountains. This time les Bleus would both infiltrate the villages to track insurgents and allow for concentrated conventional and special operations, and impersonated insurgents, exposing collaborators and siphoning off funds. Eventually the villagers were unable to tell who was really in the FLN and stopped offering support to anyone, causing the FLN to lose information access and starve in the desert.

    Of course, despite the crushing military defeats, the FLN still came out on top at the end, as Algeria won its independence in 1962. Years of massacres and imprisonment had made it too hard to reintegrate the Algerians, the French had lost their taste for the brutal nature of counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare, and internal instability, including a curious case of mass French-on-French terrorism and a coup, eventually forced the French out. Yet the Algerian War of Independence would still offer many valuable and relevant lessons, the foremost being that insurgencies are won and lost through information, intelligence, and human network operations.

Comments

[Alex @ I-Con]

On an interesting side note, the insurgent strongholds that were so difficult to penetrate then, such as Kabylia which is mountainous, tribal, and distrustful of the central government, have become al Qaeda strongholds today.