The S.A.S. won local affection yet suffered the heaviest administrator casualties
Evidence
Some 400 S.A.S. detachments were created, each under an army lieutenant or captain who was an expert in Arabic and Arab affairs and could deal with every conceivable aspect of administration; from agronomy, teaching and health, to building houses and administering justice. The kĆ©pis bleus, as they were affectionately called, were a selflessly devoted and courageous band of men, who made themselves much loved by the local populace, and for that reason were often the principal targets of the F.L.N., suffering the heaviest casualties of any category of administrator. Foreign journalists who saw them at work in the remoter bled, isolated and in constant danger, never ceased to be impressed. Unfortunately, there were always too few kĆ©pis bleus with all the numerous qualifications that the job required; and, inevitably, there were the bad ones who transformed the S.A.S. into āintelligence centresā where torture was not unknown. ā Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 345
Categorization
- XREF: The dual civilian-counterinsurgency character of the S.A.S. connects to later debates on hearts-and-minds tactics and the ātorture beneath the surfaceā pattern seen in other colonial wars. ā connects to: Soustelleās S.A.S. counters aimed to win remote populations but also harbored torture cells