When the two bombs went off a few minutes later the carnage was particularly appalling in the Milk-Bar, where the heavy glass covering the walls was shattered into lethal splinters. Altogether there were three deaths and over fifty injured, including a dozen with amputated limbs, among them several children. Only Djamila Bouhired's bomb, placed in the hall of the Air France terminus, failed to go off, due to a faulty timer. Pied noir reactions were expectedly violent, and those sympathetic to the F.L.N. cause were shocked by the callous placing of the bombs. Dr Pierre Chaulet, who was sheltering Ramdane Abane, expressed his disapproval but was told coldly: "I see hardly any difference between the girl who places a bomb in the Milk-Bar and the French aviator who bombards a mechta or who drops napalm on a zone interdite."

QUESTION: The FLN member's cold logic equating the Milk-Bar bombing with aerial bombardment of villages is worth exploring — when does asymmetric warfare regard civilian casualties as equivalent?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 559