Saadi Yacef (20 January 1928-), also known as El-Hadi Jaffar, Si Djaffer, and Reda Lee, was an Algerian politician and a former FLN revolutionary leader. During the 1950s, he took part in the resistance war against France, and he is best known for his role in the Battle of Algiers in 1957.
Biography[]
Saadi Yacef was born on 20 January 1928 in Algiers, French North Africa to a large Sunni Muslim Berber family; "Little Omar" was his nephew. Yacef was an apprentice baker from an illiterate family, and he was involved with the Algerian People's Party and other Algerian nationalist groups. In 1954, he quit his job as a baker to join the FLN, and he became the military chief of Algiers. Yacef was responsible for recruiting people such as Ali La Pointe into the FLN, and he conducted several attacks against the French Army; by 1956, there was an average of 4.2 attacks each day in Algiers. Yacef was responsible for the bombings of the Air France terminal on Rue Mauritania, the Rue Michelet cafe, and the Rue d'Isly milk bar on 30 September 1956, killing 3 people and wounding 50. On 24 September 1957, Yacef was captured by the French authorities and interrogated, and some claimed that he was responsible for giving up La Pointe to the authorities. In 1958, he was pardoned by Charles de Gaulle's government, and he became a senator in the Council of the Nation.