Aged twenty-six, Ali la Pointe came of poor parents and had never been to school; instead, he had found his education in the underworld of the Casbah, selling combs and chewing-gum on the street, preyed upon as a pretty boy by pederast beggars, and joining up with gangs of shoe-shine boys reminiscent of Fagin's urchins in Oliver Twist. On his chest he had tattooed "Go forward or die" ("Marche ou crève"), and on his foot "Shut up", exhortations which he followed to the end. Growing up, he graduated to becoming a card-sharper and pimp, and was serving a two-year sentence for resisting arrest when the rebellion broke out in 1954. In Barberousse he was "got at" by F.L.N. militants, told that he was a "victim of colonialism", and urged to join the cause. On being transferred to another prison he escaped and, returning to his old haunts, made contact with Yacef, who submitted him to the accepted test of shooting down a flic. Ali was slipped a pistol by a veiled women, but on firing it three times at the designated victim he discovered it was unloaded. Smashing it in the man's face, he made his getaway and raged at Yacef for tricking him, but was mollified on realising that it was all part of an exacting initiation; and from that moment — with his unique knowledge of the Casbah, its petty crooks, tarts, dope-pedlars and thugs — he became Yacef's most loyal and valuable lieutenant.

XREF: Recalls the Battle of Algiers film and how the F.L.N. recruited from the Casbah's criminal underworld.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 562