Khaled Nezzar - Military Career

Military Career

After studying in the local native school (école indigène), he was transferred to a school for troops' children at Kolea, and then joined the French army, studying at the Strasbourg military school in Algiers where non-commissioned officers were trained. After independence in 1962, he remained in the Algerian army, and starting rising through the ranks. He went to Moscow in 1964 to receive military training at the Frunze Military Academy there. Upon his return in 1965, he was named Director of Materiel in the Ministry of National Defense. Soon after Houari Boumedienne's coup, he was put in charge of the Saharan 2nd Motorized Infantry, based around Ain Sefra. In 1968, he was sent to Egypt to help guard the Egypt-Israel line of control, which at the time (just after the Six Day War) witnessed regular artillery bombardments and aerial bombings. After returning from Egypt, he was put in charge of training Algeria's first parachutists, with Soviet help, at Biskra.

In 1975, he went through further training at the Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in Paris; at this point, he was a Lieutenant-Colonel. He returned in his second year without finishing his studies, having been summoned back to command troops in Tindouf at the height of the Moroccan-Algerian conflict over the Western Sahara issue. He spent the next seven years in the Bechar-Tindouf area.

After Chadli Bendjedid took power, Nezzar was sent away from Tindouf to the east, a decision which he resented. He rose rapidly through the ranks, and, by 1988, he was a ground forces commander at Ain Naadja in Algiers, where he played a significant role in suppressing the "Black October" riots.