Abd al-Qrim (c. 188o-1963). Berber chieftain who ...

Abd al-Qrim (c. 188o-1963). Berber chieftain who fought the Spaniards and the French in the Rif war of 1920-26. The son of a chief in northern Morocco, he resented the harsh Spanish rule established in 1912 and raised a revolt in 1920. His first operations were guerrilla strikes from the Rif mountains, but in July 192o his forces inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Spanish army at the battle of Annual, killing 12,000 Spaniards, indirectly bringing down the Spanish government and enabling Primo de Rivera to become dictator. Abd al-Qrim then began to organize an independent Rif republic in the mountains. The French intervened when it seemed as if he might become the leader of a movement to liberate Morocco from French control. In 1924 Lyautey, the French Commander, moved his troops into the southern Rif, where they clashed with Abd al-Qrim's forces. By September 1925 French and Spanish armies totalling nearly 5oo,ooo men and backed by tanks and aircraft, under the command of General Primo de Rivera and Marshal Petain, took the offensive against the Rif republic. Within eight months Abd al-Qrim was defeated and surrendered. He was deported to the island of Reunion, where he remained until 1947 when he was given permission to live in France: at Suez he escaped from the ship that was carrying him, and spent the rest of his life in exile in Egypt

Penguin Dictionary of Modern History 1789 1945 (pages 2-3)