Mohamed Ben AbdelKrim Khattabi head of Rif tribes in Morocco, was born about 1882. he continued his studies in a military academy in Spain then he worked as writer as a head of the Arabic section of a Spanish newspaper. Combined and essential element in the management of the Spanish zone until 1920, date on which he took the weapons against the Spanish laws.
A considerable event occupies the horizon of the Maghreb then: the fight of Abdelkrim, " our precursor " will say Ho Chi Min and Mao Tsé Toung. In 1921, His small force demolishes the Spanish army. He crushes it in Anoual and collects considerable spoils of war by beating the troops of Spanish elite sent in reinforcement with at their Franco head and by making 10.000 prisoners. In the zone thus released, practically the north of Morocco, He melts in 1923 the Republic of Rif.
In 1912, He pushes back the Spaniards towards Al hoceima
In 1925, after the surrounding of His single rival, Raisouni, He advances in the French zone. It was necessary that the two armies Franco-Spanish which occupied Morocco combine to overcome him.
His partisans had that ridiculous means, hardly sufficient to lead a guerrilla vis-a-vis to two great powers. On a side France, which laid out of modern armament (44 escadrilles), of all the means necessary, 725 000 men and frameworks tested like the marshals Lyautey and Pétain. Other side, the Spanish army carried out by the Primo General of Will rivet, unloaded with 100 000 men.
The strong army rifaine of a permanent core of thirty thousand combatants reinforced by the irregular ones, hold more than one year under the heavy artillery shootings and the attacks of the armoured tanks, against which their rifles cannot anything.
At the time of his rendering with Targuist, May 27, 1926, Mohamed Ben Abdelkrim Khattabi had that 30.000 rifles to be opposed to the French ordered by the marshal Pétain of share, and other share, the Spanish troops ordered by the General San Jorge. Khattabi was expelled with the Meeting from where he succeeds in escaping into 1947 towards Egypt.
The arrival in Cairo d' Abdelkrim in 1947 will give a significant impulse to the regrouping of Maghrébins for the claim of independence. He forms, with the other nationalist leaders, a Committee of Release of the Maghreb. The adopted charter reaffirms the membership of the Maghreb to Islam and the Arab world.
Rifiens was the first illustration of the vulnerability of colonialism vis-a-vis an armed struggle. The national movement was born from the war of Rif. The success of AbdelKrim had an immense repercussion giving place to other movements of resistance. The process for independence of Morocco will be stimulated as from this moment.
After the independence of Morocco, the King Mohamed V in 1958 allotted the title of national hero to him. He decided to return to Morocco in 1962, but unfortunately on February 6, 1963 he died before reaching his destination.
[ Edité par Souss le 2/5/2004 1:17 ]