Under mounting French military pressure, a fresh set of rifts had been provoked in the higher echelons of the F.L.N., both between the Wilayas and the “exterior” of the G.P.R.A., and within the various Wilayas themselves. The years of 1958 and 1959 were, above all, a time when the Wilaya leaders were scourged by terrible apprehensions of treachery, or purported treachery. Genuine acts of betrayal had existed, certainly, but they had been used with extreme cunning by French intelligence operatives to demoralise the maquis through playing upon the innate suspiciousness of the Algerian. It has already been noted how teams of bleu double-agents controlled by Captain Christian Léger during the Battle of Algiers had subsequently succeeded in penetrating the Western Zone headquarters of Wilaya 3 (Kabylia), rounding it up in its entirety. Colonel Godard, the expert on counter-revolutionary warfare, followed up the confusion and distrust generated in the wake of this coup by adroitly “dropping” incriminating correspondence with French intelligence among other immaculate leaders in the Wilayas. The bait was snapped up greedily by Amirouche, the jeweller from the Beni-Yenni and the most ruthless of any Wilaya commander, entering into the “game” with unparalleled zest and instituting massive purges like a latter-day Vyshinsky.

XREF: Echoes Cold War security services weaponizing paranoia to destabilize adversaries, e.g., NKVD show trials or Stasi operations.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 980