Suspects Arrested In Algiers Casbah

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29746, 13 February 1962, Page 9

Suspects Arrested In Algiers Casbah

(N XJ>A.-Reuter— Copyright) ALGIERS, February 12. Thousands of heavily armed French troops yesterday encircled the Casbah the old Arab quarter of Algiers in the second huge security operation in forty-eight hours.

Men aged between 18 and 40 were interrogated and at least 39 are known to have been arrested.

On Saturday. about 5000 security men seized 192 guns and arrested 21 Secret Army Organisation (OJLS.) susPjcts J n . a Pre-dawn raid on the Bab-El-Oued European quarter.

A European was killed and two Europeans were wounded in separate gun attacks in the city during the day.

lO persons were killed and 16 wounded in 30 gun attacks. Plans For War Many Algerian officials are convinced the OAS. is preparing for a long war similar to that waged in Algeria by the Algerian rebels. This conviction was strengthened this week by the discovery of a big armed band of OAS. guerrillas operating

in the Algerian mountains. The band, 40 strong, and armed with automatic weapons, surrendered to French troops without firing a shot. Up to now, the O-A-S., led by the former general, Raoul Salan, in hiding somewhere in Algeria, has kept its activities mainly to the towns. But in recent weeks it announced that commandos were being organised in the “Bled”—the Algerian countryside—and that thousands of men in Algeria had received secret •‘mobilisation orders.”

In the cities the O.A.S. has attempted to establish its own law with a non-stop series of “executions” and audacious propaganda coups. The nucleus of the O.A.S. commandos is formed by some 300 men of many nationalities who deserted from the Ist Foreign Legion Paratrooper Regiment when it was disbanded after the collapse of the putsch last April Many of them have criminal records.

In having to recruit such desperadoes to carry out killings, bank raids and robberies lies one of the weaknesses of the O.AS. Its main strength is in the complicity of the European population.