Three events now marked the climax of pure civil war, of Frenchmen killing Frenchmen. On the 23rd two army trucks loaded with young conscripts were surrounded by hostile pieds noirs in Bab-el-Oued. A new addition to Degueldre's Deltas, called an "A-Commando" after its leader Jacques Achard, arrived on the scene and attempted to disarm the soldiers. Apparently a Muslim private nervously cocked his sub-machine-gun; Achard's squad ruthlessly opened fire, killing outright seven of the conscripts and wounding another eleven. … Salan's instructions had been obeyed, but the massacre of the young conscripts totally transformed the attitude of the army — hitherto almost passively neutral — towards the O.A.S. A determination to avenge fallen comrades took over.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1601