Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi

A qadi and journalist educated at the University of al-Qarawiyyin, Abdelkrim unified the feuding Amazigh tribes of the Rif mountains against Spanish colonial conquest. In July 1921, at the Battle of Annual, his force of 3,000 mountain fighters routed an army of 20,000 Spanish troops, capturing modern artillery trains.

He founded the Republic of the Rif (1921–1926), creating roads, courts, and radio communications. He surrendered only after an allied Franco-Spanish force of 250,000 soldiers under Marshal Pétain deployed illegal chemical mustard gas bombs. Escaping exile in 1947, he headed the Liberation Committee of the Arab Maghreb in Cairo until his death in 1963.