Amirouche Aït Hamouda ( ar, عميروش آيت حمودة), commonly called Colonel Amirouche, was a leader in the

Algerian War The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...

, organizing the

irregular military Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military orga ...

of the Wilaya III. He is considered a national hero in Algeria. He was killed during combat against French troops on 29 March 1959. This event was much publicized, as Amirouche was considered to be a great threat to the French in Algeria.

Biography

He was born on 31 October 1926 in Tassaft Ouguemoun, a small town in the Djurdjura. Orphan, he was the son of Amirouche Aït Hamouda and Fatima Aït Mendes Bent Ramdane. When his father died, he inherited his first name, as tradition required. A year after his birth, his widowed mother took his two children, Boussad, the eldest, and himself; she left her husband's village to join the hamlet from which she came, Ighil Bwammas, a short distance away. The family of the maternal uncles being itself very poor, the young Amirouche had to learn from an early age to make himself useful in order to survive and, if necessary, to help his mother and his brother, who was three years older than him. In the region, it is customary for boys whose parents have died or are particularly poor to serve in the homes of wealthier families, where they are fed in exchange for assistance bordering on servitude. In this way, people may spend their lives in a form of perpetual servitude, with no guarantee other than that they will be given their daily rations. This status is called 'acrik', which is equivalent to that of the serf in medieval Europe. This was the fate of Amirouche Aït Hamouda from his early childhood. However, he succeeded in getting an education while carrying out his numerous and arduous tasks. These few years at school were decisive in his life: he learned to read and write and developed a capacity for listening that enabled him to satisfy his curious mind all his life. Amirouche gets involved in politics. He approves of the nationalist leader of the town, Dr Ahmed Francis, who denounces - it is the time of Marcel-Edmond Naegelen's proconsulate - the rigged elections. However, the options he took were more radical than those of the UDMA leader. Not satisfied with joining the MTLD and leaving Relizane to go and work in Algiers as a permanent employee at the headquarters of this movement, place de Chartres, he joined the Special Organisation (abbreviated O.S). When the repression fell on the Special Organisation of the MTLD, in 1950-1951, Amirouche was imprisoned. Released, but forbidden to stay in Algiers, he returned, on his release