Abd el-Krim was born in Ajdir, Morocco, across Alhucemas Bay from the Spanish army’s island presidio of Peñón de Alhucemas, the son of Abd al-Karim El-Khattabi, a qadi (Islamic judge) of the Aith Yusuf clan of the Aith Uriaghel (or Waryaghar) tribe.
Abd el-Krim received a traditional education at a mosque school in Ajdir, then attended a religious institute at Tetouan. At the age of twenty, it appears he studied for two years in Fez at the Attarine and Seffarine madrasah, in order to prepare to enter the famous Qaraouiyine University. Both he and his brother M'Hammad received a Spanish education, with his brother studying mine engineering in Málaga and Madrid. Both spoke fluent Spanish and Riffian.
Abd el-Krim entered the Spanish administration, first as a secretary in the Bureau of Native Affairs and later he was appointed chief qadi for Melilla in 1915. He taught at a Hispano-Arabic school and was an editor for the Arab section of the newspaper, El Telegrama del Rif.
During World War I, Abd el-Krim was arrested by the Spanish authorities for anticolonial activities including alleged involvement in a conspiracy with the German consul Dr. Walter Zechlin (1879–1962). He was imprisoned in Chaouen from 1916 to 1918, then escaped. He regained his job as a judge in Melilla. At the end of the war, Abd el-Krim briefly resumed publishing in a Spanish-language newspaper, but, fearing extradition to French Morocco, he returned to his home at Ajdir in January 1919. He was alarmed by the appearance of Spanish agents in Ayt Weryaghel tribal territory and decided to fight for his tribe's independence. The following year, Abd el-Krim, together with his brother, began a war of rebellion against the Spanish incursions. His goal was to unite the tribes of the Rif into an independent Republic of the Rif; to dismantle the entire French-Spanish colonial project in Morocco, and to introduce modern political reform.
An educated, intelligent, and vigorous man whose insurrection in 1922-26 shaped the careers of many French officers on the eve of WWII, he began by annihilating a Spanish army of 20,000 on 21 July 22 at Anual. After proclaiming the Republic of the Rif, forming a well trained army that drove the Spanish into coastal enclaves, on 13 Apr 25 he turned on the French. The army of the Rif drove south to the outskirts of Fez before being stopped by the legendary Gen Louis Lyautey. Overwhelming Franco-Spanish forces under PETAIN and FRANCO scored successes, but a discouraged Pdtain had begun armistice parlays at Oudjda when Col Andre CORAP captured Abd-el-Krim on 26 May 26 by a coup de main (Pertinax).
The Wolf of the Rif was exiled on Reunion until 1947. when he jumped ship while en route to asylum in France. Settling in Cairo, proclaimed a national hero by Sultan Mohammed V of Morocco in 1958, the Berber chief died 6 February 1963 in Cairo.
Emir Mohand ben Abdelkrim al-Khattabi had 6 sons and 5 daughters from two different women. From his marriage with Lalla Mimouna Boujibar (sibling of Mohammed Boujibar a prominent figure in the Government of the Republic of the Rif) .
