Career
Mohamed Khider was one of the original leaders of the Front de Libération nationale (FLN), having been previously active in its nationalist predecessors, the Étoile Nord-Africaine and Parti du Peuple Algerien (PPA) of Messali Hadj. He played an important role during the first years of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), mainly in representing the FLN externally. In 1956, he was part of a group of FLN politicians (Khider, Ahmad Ben Bella, Hocine Aït Ahmad, Mohamed Boudiaf and Rabah Bitat) captured by France in an airplane hijacking.
He was released as Algeria became independent in 1962.
Boumédiène"s army, built up outside the war zone in Morocco and Tunisia, quashed resistance among GPRA loyalists and guerrilla units inside Algeria, as it moved in from its border area bases. Among the causes were political differences, personal rivalries, and opposition to Ben Bella"s increasingly autocratic rule.
Ben Bella refused Khider"s requests to allow the FLN into the decision-making process, and replaced him as Secretary-General. In 1963, Khider went into exile in Switzerland, bringing $12 million (or $14 million ) of party funds with him, saying they would be used to finance a political opposition to continue the "genuine" nationalist tradition of the FLN. In 1967, he was assassinated in Madrid, Spain.
Most observers blamed his death on Colonel
Boumédiène, who had toppled Ben Bella two years earlier, and to whom Khider had declared his continued opposition. He was posthumously rehabilitated by Boumédiène"s successor, Chadli Bendjedid, in 1984.