Léger’s coup was a success that more than atoned for such past debacles as Oiseau Bleu, Kobus and even Bellounis. The destruction of the post-Yacef network in Algiers was so complete that, in effect, the Z.A.A. was never to be usefully re-created until the last months of the war. But even more far-reaching were the consequences of the mistrust it had sown in Wilaya 3. By what was more or less a random shot, Léger had struck at the Achilles’ heel of the whole F.L.N.: the mutual distrusts, hatreds and fears of betrayal that, as one now knows, seethed constantly just beneath the surface. Immediately Amirouche, like a Stalin in microcosm, launched the most savage and self-perpetuating series of purges.

XREF: Parallels intelligence operations where one lucky penetration triggers paranoid purges that weaken the target more than the strike itself — echoes of Stalin's purges and counterintelligence literature.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 807