Mandela received his first military training in Algeria

While mourning the death of Nelson Mandela, an Algerian minister on Friday spoke of the African leader’s first military training in Algeria during 1960s.
“Mandela received his initial military training by the rebels of the National Liberation Front in Algeria in the early 1960s, when he decided to establish a military arm to the African National Congress,” Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ramtane Lamamra told journalists during a summit for Peace and Security in Africa which began Friday in Paris.
“Algeria was a strong supporter of the African National Congress, providing it with weapons, passports and other tools which contributed to the historic triumph against apartheid,” Lamamra added.
In his autobiography “The Long Walk to Freedom,” Mandela admits that he was inspired by the Algerian revolution, which he said was the closest to South Africa’s at the time, writing “the Algerian rebels had to face a big colony of white men who were governing the majority of the population.”
In 1961, Mandela visited the troops of the Algerian Liberation Army headquarters in the Moroccan city of Oujda, where arms were frequently smuggled in to the Algerian rebels.
“They were an army of guerillas who earned their stars by the battles they fought, and they were more passionate about war and military strategies than uniforms and parades,” Mandela wrote about the Algerian fighters.