Abd el-Krim

Abd el-Krim al-Khattabi was a Berber leader from the Rif region of northern Morocco who led a large-scale rebellion against Spanish colonial rule beginning in 1921, inflicting one of the most severe defeats a European colonial army suffered in Africa at the Battle of Annual that year, where thousands of Spanish troops were killed. Building on that victory, he founded the short-lived Republic of the Rif, an early attempt at an independent modern state governed along constitutional lines, and continued to resist colonial forces even after France joined Spain against him in 1925, deploying tens of thousands of additional troops and aircraft. Overwhelmed by the combined Franco-Spanish campaign, he surrendered in 1926 and was exiled by France to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where he was held for two decades before being allowed to travel toward France in 1947, at which point he instead sought asylum in Egypt. His guerrilla tactics and his stand against two European colonial powers were later cited as an inspiration by other twentieth-century anti-colonial and revolutionary leaders, and he remained an outspoken advocate of Maghreb independence until his death in Cairo in 1963.