The Battle of Algiers was a campaign of urban guerrilla warfare carried out by the National Liberation Front (FLN) against the French Algerian authorities from late 1956 to late 1957. The conflict began as a series of terrorist attacks by the FLN against the French forces and civilians in Algiers, reprisals followed and the violence escalated leading the French Governor-General to deploy the French Army in Algiers to suppress the FLN. Civilian authorities left all prerogatives to General Massu who, operating outside legal frameworks between January and September 1957, successfully eliminated the FLN from Algiers. The documented extensive use of torture, forced disappearances and illegal executions by the French later caused severe controversy in France. Militarily, the French nearly entire