[also called War of Melilla]

Rif War... spelled Riff, also called WAR OF MELILLA (1919-26), war fought between the Spanish and the Moroccan Rif and Jibala tribes.

By the Treaty of Fez (1912), Spain had been awarded the mountainous zones around Melilla and Ceuta, in Morocco. The two zones had few, if any, roads and were separated by the Bay of Alhucemas, making communications and development difficult. In 1920 the Spanish commissioner, General Dámaso Berenguer, decided to conquer the eastern zone's Jibala tribes and thus incorporate their lands into those already controlled by Spain. At the same time, he ordered Manuel Fernández Silvestre, commander of the western sector, to subdue the Rif tribes and their leader, Abd el-Krim. Berenguer's overall goal was to unite the two sectors. The forces of Abd el-Krim, however, inflicted a disastrous defeat on the Spanish troops, pushing them back to the walls of Melilla, and for five years sporadic warfare continued. Spanish losses were heavy, partly because of their ineffective leadership and partly because of their inadequate arms.

In 1925 the French joined the war on the side of Spain and attacked from the south. The Spanish fleet secured Alhucemas Bay and began an offensive from the north. Abd el-Krim, then leader of both the tribes, surrendered, and in 1926 the Spanish Sahara was decisively retaken.

One of the Spanish generals who most distinguished himself in the Rif War was Francisco Franco.

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Abd el-Krim [ b. 1882, Ajdir, Mor.; d. Feb. 6, 1963, Cairo, Egypt] in full MUHAMMAD IBN 'ABD AL-KARIM AL-KHATTABI, leader of a resistance movement against Spanish and French rule in North Africa and founder of the short-lived Republic of the Rif (1921-26). A skilled tactician and a capable organizer, he led a liberation movement that made him the hero of the Maghrib (northwest Africa). A precursor of the anticolonial struggle for independence, Abd el-Krim was defeated only by the military and technological superiority of the colonial powers. 
Son of an influential member of the Berber tribe Banu Uriaghel, Abd el-Krim received a Spanish education in addition to the traditional Muslim schooling. He was employed as a secretary in the Bureau of Native Affairs. In 1915 he was appointed the qadi al-qudat, or chief Muslim judge, for the district of Melilla, where he also taught at a Hispano-Arabic school and was the editor of an Arabic section of El Telegrama del Rif.

During his employment with the Spanish protectorate administration he began to be disillusioned with Spanish rule, eventually opposed Spanish policies, and was imprisoned. He escaped and in 1918 was made chief Muslim judge at Melilla again, but he left the post in 1919 to return to Ajdir.

Soon Abd el-Krim, joined by his brother, who later became his chief adviser and commander of the Rif army, was organizing tribal resistance against foreign domination of Morocco. In July 1921 at Annoual he defeated a Spanish army and pursued it to the suburbs of Melilla. At that time the Republic of the Rif was founded with Abd el-Krim as its president. Overcoming tribal rivalries, he began organizing a centralized administration based upon traditional Berber tribal institutions. He defeated another Spanish army in 1924; in 1925 he almost reached the ancient city of Fès in his drive against French forces that had captured his supply base in the Wargha valley. 

Faced with Abd el-Krim's successes and seeing in his movement a threat to their colonial possessions in North Africa, the Franco-Spanish conference meeting in Madrid decided upon joint action. As a Spanish force landed at Alhucemas near Ajdir, a French army of 160,000 men under Marshal Philippe Pétain attacked from the south. Confronted with this combined Franco-Spanish force of 250,000 men with overwhelming technological superiority, Abd el-Krim surrendered on May 27, 1926, and was exiled to the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Receiving permission in 1947 to live in France, he left Réunion and was granted political asylum en route by the Egyptian government; for five years he presided over the Liberation Committee of the Arab West (sometimes called the Maghrib Bureau) in Cairo. After the restoration of Moroccan independence, King Muhammad V invited him to return to Morocco, which he refused to do as long as French troops remained on North African soil.

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Further information may be found in David S. Woolman, Rebels in the Rif: Abd el Krim and the Rif Rebellion (1968); Rupert Furneaux, Abdel Krim: Emir of the Rif (1967); and Jose E. Alvarez, The Betrothed of Death: The Spanish Foreign Legion During the Rif Rebellion, 1920-1927 (2000).