Daily Sitka Sentinel And The Arrowhead Press

French call-up troops to help put down trouble in Morocco

French armor and planes move on tribesmen in hills

AIX LES BAINS (AP)—Premier Edgar Faure tonight announced the call-up of an undisclosed number of army reservists to reinforce the French troops fighting to put down the rebellion in North Africa.

The premier said he had decided, in agreement with defense minister Gen. Pierre Koenig, to call up a certain number of reservists, including some in France.

He said it was possible a meeting of the cabinet would be held in the next few days.

Apparently answering rumors circulating in Casablanca today that resident general Gilbert Grandval might be recalled as a result of the bloody disorders of last weekend, Faure came out strongly in defense of Grandval.

"It would be unjust to accuse a man or a policy," he said.

"The campaign against the resident general is abominable and should be stigmatized as such. Nobody can say that the difficulties Morocco has been through are due to the resident general."

CASABLANCA (AP)—Armored French columns under fighter plane cover struck today in overwhelming strength at the mountain strongholds of Moroccan tribesmen who launched an insurrection Saturday.

Heavy reinforcing columns set out last night from Rabat and Meknes to join the already strong French forces cutting off the Kaba Talda area east of Qued Zem.

French officials would not disclose the number of troops employed but said, "when you go into those mountains, you don't do it with 50 men."

Although the operation was characterized as a "punitive expedition," French officials said there would be no "repression," which in French military terminology means no mass executions.

The main targets of the expedition are the 4,000 Berber tribesmen, formerly friendly to the French, who rode out of the hills to raid Oued Zem, where about 80 Frenchmen were slaughtered and mutilated.

Although no official figures for the still growing weekend death toll were available, French officials acknowledged privately that it might reach 1,000 in Morocco alone. In Algeria, hundreds more casualties were reported.

Last night, fresh troops clogged the roads moving towards the Atlas Mountains and some villages in the border hills were evacuated.

French newspapers here called the operation the most important since those 30 years ago when the Riffs under fierce Abd El Krim were put down.