The operation had been a disastrous failure; on the other hand, information provided by it had enabled Hacq’s professionals to arrest some 600 members of the O.A.S., including sixty-nine killers. Later, Pérez himself admitted that attacking the barbouzes had been a big tactical error: “They were too easy. They were sent to Algiers specifically to be killed — to distract the O.A.S. from getting on with its main job…. We fell into the trap … Godard in fact warned us against it. He was right.”

XREF: Connects to how decoys and sacrificial units operate in counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare more broadly.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1505