Abd el-Krim

Mohammed ben Abdelkrim El Khattabi was born on 12 January 1882 in Morocco. With his brother M'Hammad, he organized a coalition of Riffian tribes into a large-scale revolt against the Spanish and French Protectorates controlling the Rif and wider Morocco, becoming president of the Republic of the Rif. His forces introduced tunneling as a modern combat technique—the first time it appeared in twentieth-century war. Those methods traveled: Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Che Guevara all drew directly from his playbook. After the fighting he moved to Cairo, where he became a major voice in Arab nation…