Book Review by Daniel Moran of The Battle of Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria written by Robert L. Miller
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Moran, Daniel
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2006
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Abstract
In 1957, French soldiers tortured approximately 40 percent of the male population of
the Muslim quarter of Algiers to try to root out the terrorist network of the Algerian
National Liberation Front (known to history as the FLN). This campaign, although
shadowy and shrouded in euphemism, was not, strictly speaking, secret. Systematic
torture in Algeria was the subject of widespread public comment at the time—one
French general was relieved of his command after condemning it in the press—and it
has attracted a good deal of scholarly investigation since. Several major participants,
including the commanding ofªcer in Algiers, General Jacques Massu, have written
about it, for the most part unapologetically. Their frankness has been facilitated by the
blanket amnesty issued by the French government in 1968, absolving all those who
served in Algeria of whatever crimes they may have committed there.
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Paul Aussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Algeria,
1955–1957, trans. by Robert L. Miller. New York: Enigma Books, 2002. 185 pp.
$25.00.
Reviewed by Daniel Moran, Naval Postgraduate School
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.