French counterintelligence eliminated a key FLN leader with a booby-trapped radio

Evidence

On the instructions of Adjoul, Chihani’s death was kept a strict secret, and it remains uncertain whether it took place before (as Adjoul claims) or after Ben Boulaid’s return. Whichever it was, the state of disintegration he found in the Aurès was extreme. Over the next few months he seems to have been partly successful in picking up the pieces. Then a French cloak-and-dagger field unit called the 11th Shock Regiment entered the scene. By carefully contriving what looked like a badly placed parachute drop, the 11th Shock floated down a booby-trapped radio close to Ben Boulaid’s headquarters. As it was the latest model available to the French army, the assumption was that curiosity would induce an important rebel leader to investigate. That leader proved to be Ben Boulaid, who was blown to pieces in the ensuing explosion, together with his chief aide and two djounoud. The date was 27 March 1956; a short time later Adjoul defected to the French. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 443

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later French cloak-and-dagger methods like the Challe plan and counter-terror in Algeria.