ALGERIA: A Soldier's Death

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Of all the rebel combat commanders thrown up by Algeria's 4½-year-old civil war, none was more dreaded by French and Moslems alike than Amirouche Aït Hamouda, a peddler's son from the mountainous Berber stronghold of Kabylia. Barely into his 20s when he joined the underground, sinewy, long-legged Amirouche rose swiftly to the F.L.N.'s highest field rank, full "colonel," commanded a battle-hardened force of 5,000 men that made Kabylia the country's strongest bastion of rebel power.

Amirouche lived in the field with his guerrillas, seldom slept in one place for more than a few hours, eluded French patrols time and again with lightning mobility. As his legend grew, so did his delight in his own prowess. He affected strange headgear, often of black astrakhan, and gripped his men in a discipline of iron. Merciless with Moslems who wavered from the rebel cause, he operated a forest execution plant, where disloyal F.L.N. troops dug their own graves before their throats were slashed. Yet sometimes, with shrewd compassion, Amirouche released kidnaped French settlers after a lecture on nationalism.

Fortnight ago, summoned to a staff conference on how to counter the French army's increasingly aggressive tactics, Amirouche and two aides began the long hike to rebel headquarters in Tunis. They never got there. Acting on a tip, 3,000 French troops surrounded a craggy mountain where Amirouche had met local rebel leaders en route. After five hours of shooting, the French counted 71 dead. Among them was Amirouche, who was found beside a rock, his green eyes open, his chest and neck torn by grenade fragments.

In Algiers, café owners chalked up the good news on their sport scoreboards, and the government radio blared the achievement: "The fate of Amirouche is the fate of all rebel leaders." But French fighting men were not so optimistic. Said famed Paratroop Major General Jacques Massu: "Amirouche is dead, but they'll find another."