| Muhammad Ibn 'Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi | |
|---|---|
| 1882-1963 | |
 Abd el-Krim |
|
| Nickname | Abd el-Krim or Abdelkrim |
| Place of birth | Ajdir, Morocco |
| Place of death | Cairo, Egypt |
| Allegiance |  Rif Republic |
| Rank | Guerilla leader |
| Battles/wars | Rif War * Battle of Annual |
Abd el-Krim (c.1882, Ajdir –February 6, 1963, Cairo) (Mulay Abdelkrim, full name: Muhammad Ibn 'Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi , (Arabic: محمد بن عبد الكريم الخطابي) was the Berber leader of the Rif, a Berber area of northeastern Morocco. He became the leader of a wide scale armed resistance movement against French and Spanish colonial rule in North Africa. His guerilla tactics are known to have inspired Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Che Guevara.
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Early life
Born in Ajdir, Morocco, to Abdelkrim El-Khattabi, a qadi (Islamic judge) of the Ait Yusuf clan of the Aith Uriaghel (or Waryaghar) tribe. Abd el-Krim was educated both in traditional zaouias and in Spanish schools, continuing his education in the ancient university of Qarawiyin in Fez. His brother, M'hammed El-Khattabi, later on his partner in battle, also received a Spanish education studying mine engineering in Madrid. Both spoke fluent Spanish.
The journey in Spain
He entered the Spanish governmental structure, and was appointed chief qadi for Melilla in 1914, as well as editing the Arabic section of the newspaper El Telegrama del Rif.[1] In his time there, he came to oppose Spanish domination, and was imprisoned in 1915-1916 for saying that Spain should not expand beyond its current dominions (which in practice excluded most of the effectively ungoverned Rif), and for expressing sympathy for the Germans in World War I.[2] Soon after, he returned to Ajdir in 1919 and, with his brother, began to unite the tribes of the Rif into an independent Republic of the Rif. He made it clear that this Republic was strictly provisional, confirming his allegiance to the Moroccan throne and the royal family.
Guerrilla leadership
In 1921, as a by-product of their efforts to destroy the power of a local brigand, Raisuli, Spanish troops approached the unoccupied areas of the Rif. Abd-el-Krim sent their General, Manuel Fernández Silvestre, a warning that if they crossed the Amekran River he would consider it an act of war. Silvestre is said to have laughed, and shortly afterwards set up a military post across the river to establish an outpost at the hills of Abarán. In June 1921 a sizable Riffian force attacked this post killing 179 Spanish troops of the estimated 250. Soon afterwards, Abd el-Krim directed his forces to attack the Spanish lines at Annual (Morocco) with great success — in three weeks 8,000 Spanish troops were killed, and the Spanish Army of 13,000 was forced to retreat to the coast by only 3,000 Rifains.[3] During the attack on Annual, General Silvestre either committed suicide or was killed defending the post. This colossal victory established Abd el-krim as a genius of guerrilla warfare. [4] By 1924, the Spanish had been forced to retreat to their possessions along the Moroccan coast. France, which in any case laid claim to territory in the southern Rif, realized that allowing another North African colonial power to be defeated by natives would set a dangerous precedent for their own territories, and after Abd el-Krim invaded French Morocco in April 1925, entered the fray. In 1925, a French force under Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain and a Spanish army, with a combined total of 250,000 soldiers, began operations against the Rif Republic. Intense combat persisted for ten months, but eventually the combined French and Spanish armies — using, among other weapons, mustard gas against the population — defeated the forces of Abd el-Krim. On May 26, 1926 Abd el-Krim surrendered to the French at his then headquarters of Targuist.[5][6]
Exile
As a consequence, he was exiled to the island of Réunion (a French territory in the Indian Ocean) from 1926 to 1947, where he was "given a comfortable estate and generous annual subsidiary." Abd el-Krim was later given permission to live in the south of France, after being released for health concerns, he however succeeded in gaining asylum in Egypt instead, where he presided over the Liberation Committee for the Arab Maghreb, and where he died in 1963, just after seeing his hopes of a Maghreb independent of colonial powers completed by the independence of Algeria.[7] The embarrassing defeat of Spanish forces at Annual created a political crisis that subsequently led to General Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup d' etat of September 13, 1923, and the installation of a military Dictatorship (1923-1930) and the eventual collapse of the Spanish Monarchy in April 1931.
References
- ^ Spain and the Mediterranean Since 1898 by Raanan Rein, Routledge. Page 60
- ^ Modern Spain: 1875-1980 by Raymond Carr, Oxford University Press. Page 94
- ^ War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History by Robert B. Asprey, iUniverse Publishing. Page 267-274
- ^ The History of Spain by Peter Pierson, Greenwood Press. Page 126
- ^ The Reader's Companion to Military History by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker, Houghton Mifflin. Page 1
- ^ Who's Who in Military History: From 1453 to the Present Day by John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft, Routledge Publishing. Page 2
- ^ The History of Spain by Peter Pierson, Greenwood Press. Page 127
Further reading
- Rebels in the Rif: Abd el Krim and the Rif Rebellion (1968) - by David S. Woolman
- A Country with a Government and a Flag: The Rif War in Morocco, 1921-1926 (1986) - Charles Richard Pennell
