Jamal Awil

← A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962

Assassination bound Algerian recruits to the rebel cause. [causal]

At an early stage in the revolution it became a customary initiation ritual for a new recruit to be made to kill a designated “traitor”, mouchard (police spy or informer), French gendarme officer or colonialist, in the company of a “shadow” who would dispatch the recruit himself should he show any sign of flinching. Admitting this policy in an interview in a Yugoslav journal, Krim stated: “An assassination marks the end of the apprenticeship of each candidate for the A.L.N.” Through this “passingout ceremony” the apprentice became both proven in reliability and bound, Faust-like, to the rebel cause by his act of outlawry.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 416