Algerian War of Independence

The Battle of Algiers was a campaign of guerrilla warfare carried out by the National Liberation Front against the French Algerian authorities from... late 1956 to late 1957. The conflict began as a series of hit-and-run attacks by the FLN against the French Police in Algiers. Violence escalated when the French government deployed the French Army in Algiers to suppress the FLN. Civilian authorities left all prerogatives to General Massu who, operating outside legal frameworks between January and March 1957, successfully eliminated the FLN from Algiers. The use of torture resulted in a backlash against the French presence in Algeria, triggered a controversy in France, and stimulated international support for the FLN. In March 1955, Rabah Bitat, head of the FLN in Algiers, was arrested by the French. Abane Ramdane, recently freed from prison, was sent from Kabylie to take the political direction of the city in hand. In a short time, Ramdane managed to revive the FLN in Algiers. On August 20, 1955, violence broke out around Philippeville, drastically escalating the conflict. In 1956, the so-called "Algerian question" was to be debated at the United Nations.
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The Battle of Agounennda was an engagement of the Algerian War fought 23–25 May 1957 between the French 3rd Colonial Parachute Regiment under... Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Bigeard and FLN’s Commando 41 under Si Azzedine. Bigeard and his regiment were sent to hunt down the Commando after it had carried out several successful ambushes against French units. They met at Agounennda where the French paratroopers tried to ambush the FLN force, but the FLN discovered the French and instead concentrated their force against an outlying French company. Bigeard managed to redeploy and surround the FLN force; it withdrew successfully albeit with heavy casualties. However, the French were unalble to recover large caches of weapons - the FLN having taken them off the field. The battle altered FLN tactics, reminding them that they were unable to meet the French in open battle. Conversely, it gave the French renewed confidence in a military victory. However, sceptics on both sides saw it as evidence that neither faction would ever gain ascendancy in the other's arena. The FLN avoided military combat with the French, relying on guerilla warfare.
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The Café Wars took place during the Algerian War, as a part of the internal fighting in France between two rival Algerian nationalist movements,... the MNA and the FLN . The Café Wars are so called because part of the fighting took the form of bomb attacks and assassinations in cafés, directed at supporters of the other party, as they struggled for control and influence over the large Algerian expatriate community and its organizations. Since both organizations operated underground, and were wanted by the French government, the line between a military and a civilian target was hard to draw, and often wilfully disregarded by the combatants. Groups from both the MNA and the FLN resorted to gangland-style killings, intimidation and the murder of civilians to pursue their political goals and secure finances and influence. This led to the Café Wars being portrayed in France as acts of random terrorism, and conflated with attacks on French settlers in Algeria, while in reality this internal fighting possessed a military and political logic of its own.
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