To the Wall

To the French soldiers who opposed him during Algeria's war of independence, Colonel Mohammed Chaabani was "the seigneur of the sands." A tough, canny guerrilla leader, he dominated a sere swatch of the Sahara and the rugged Aures Mountains of northeastern Algeria. After independence, Chaabani joined Premier Ahmed ben Bella's Politburo and the army's general staff, but quickly grew restive under Ben Bella's heavy-handed Marxist dictatorship. Last June that uneasiness boiled over into open rebellion, and Chaabani took to the hills with a hard core of his veteran troops.

Equipped with armored cars, tanks and artillery, Chaabani's force posed a serious threat to Ben Bella, who at the same time faced growing opposition within his party and another rebellion in the Great Kabylia range east of Algiers. But treachery finally saved the day. Informers led government troops to an oasis where Chaabani was resting, forced him to surrender without firing a shot.

Last week Chaabani appeared before a newly established military court on charges of counterrevolutionary activities. The verdict was inevitable. Within an hour, as dawn broke over Oran, Mohammed Chaabani went to the wall.

But even as the rifles of the firing squad barked, Chaabani's men were still dug in on the mountains to the east. They had lost a leader, but they may have gained a martyr.

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