National Liberation Army (Algeria)

The Front de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Front) was established by the Comité Révolutionnaire d'Unité et d'Action (Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action) and organised in March 1954. Around two years later this group gained most but not all the Algerian nationalist organisations. It then re-organised itself and established a provisional government. This government included five members in executive and legislative bodies; all the members were district heads. During the ongoing war of independence in Algeria; Colonel Houari Boumedienne leads the military part of FLN the National Liberation Army against the French.[1]

The group grew to nearly 40,000 men in 1957 while France had deployed 400,000 soldiers since 1956.[2] The ALN established during the war, camps over the borders of Tunisia and Morocco to profit logistical and weapon supports to themselves. The struggle between the ALN and the French continues until 18 March 1962 when a ceasefire signed between both parties in Évian-les-Bains. A referendum was held in Algeria on 1 July on that same year. The referendum was part of the Évian Agreement with an overwhelming victory for the separatists and declaring two days later independence.[1]

On the morning of 5 July 1962 seven companies of ALN soldiers entered the city Oran were fired on by some Pied-Noirs. An outraged Arab mob swept into the Pied-Noir (white Europeans who were born in colonial Algeria) neighbourhoods, which had already been largely vacated, and attacked the estimated 40,000 remaining pieds-noirs. The violence lasted several hours until it was ended by the deployment of French Gendarmerie.[3]