In a few short years, Abd el-Karim destroyed an army from Spain, demoralized another from France, and established a short-lived state called the Republic of the Rif. As a result, anti-colonialists and leftists in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere took up Abd el-Karim’s cause.

Ultimately, Abd el-Karim, or Moulay Mohand, as he remained known in the Rif, failed to liberate his homeland. Defeated by French forces, he was sent into exile, eventually settling in Cairo. Despite living nearly 40 more years, Abd el-Karim never again set foot in Morocco.

A century later, Abd el-Karim still hasn’t been properly welcomed back. In the foothills of north-central Morocco, 15 or so kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea, along the winding road between Temsaman and Ben Taieb, there’s a walled enclosure with a little ceremonial gate. Inside, a chiseled marble plaque commemorates the July 1921 Battle of Anoual, where Abd el-Karim’s confederation of tribal forces ambushed and destroyed a Spanish garrison.

Nowadays, the monument at Anoual is a dusty place. The central plaque reads, in Arabic, “The battle confirmed the will of the Moroccan people to defend their land, their sacred values, and their national unity.” That national unity would only come 30 years after Abd el-Karim’s surrender. In 1956, Morocco won its independence from France and Spain, unifying the multiple colonial zones with Sultan (and later King) Mohammed V on the throne. Today, Mohammad V’s grandson still rules all of Morocco. Is this what Abd el-Karim would have wanted?

The plaque, and its obscurity, speak to the tension at the heart of Abd el-Karim’s legacy. For most Moroccans, Abd el-Karim remains a symbol of national unity and steadfast resistance to European imperialism. But in the Rif itself and among the activist diaspora in Europe, Abd el-Karim represents an alternative to the modern Moroccan nation-state from which many Riffians continue to feel excluded—which is also why the Moroccan monarchy and their allies continue to keep Abd el-Karim’s legacy at a distance.

Abd el-Karim with soldiers in the Rif Mountains of Morocco in an undated photo. Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)

“The Rif” (pronounced “reef”) refers to the range of steep, craggy mountains that run roughly parallel to Morocco’s northern Mediterranean coast, in some spots extending right up to the sea. The majority of Riffians speak Tarifit, a dialect of Berber. Indeed, despite centuries of Arabization, Arabic remains a second language in much of the region. The Rif was a poor place in the early 20th century, with locals subsisting on small gardens, goats, and cultivating olive and fruit trees.

Perhaps most importantly, the Rif has long had a reputation for its resistance to authority. Small-scale and short-term rebellions were very common in northern Morocco in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Several pretenders to the throne capitalized on local frustration over encroaching European influence to launch full-fledged rebellions against the sultan, sometimes with a messianic religious bent.

In 1912, France signed the Treaty of Fes with Moroccan Sultan Abd el-Hafid, establishing the French protectorate in Morocco. France in turn handed over control of the north to Spain, which also established its own protectorate, with Tetouan as the capital.

Both Abd el-Karim and his brother were recruited to serve in the early days of the Spanish colonial administration. Abd el-Karim was an editor of the Arabic version of the official Spanish newspaper, El Telegrama del Rif, which he eventually used to speak out against Spanish colonialism. For this, he spent nearly two years in prison—which he attempted to escape, unsuccessfully—and finally returned to his tribe in 1919.

Initially, Spanish rule was disorganized and feeble. Nearly a decade into their protectorate, they had yet to exert real control over virtually all the interior and had to limit themselves to operations along the coast. But in 1921 they finally put forth a concerted effort to ‘pacify’ the Rif Mountains. For Abd el-Karim, this created the opportunity to act on his longstanding opposition of Spanish rule.

Riflemen work on the Rif front during the Rif war in Morocco in an undated photo.DeAgostini/Getty Images

Forming a confederation of local tribal forces, Abd el-Karim launched a surprise attack on a Spanish advanced post. When Spanish forces attempted an unsuccessful counterattack, they left themselves short on supplies, enabling Abd el-Karim to strike again at the Spanish railway line. In response, the Spanish army advanced further into the Rif mountains, setting up an encampment at Anoual. When the Riffian army besieged it, Spanish forces found themselves again overextended and decided to retreat. Quickly, the retreat turned into a rout. The Spanish chaotically fled to their coastal stronghold at Melilla, and the Riffians pursued, capturing, or killing thousands. All told, at least 15,000 Spanish were killed in the battle and its aftermath.

After this, Abd el-Karim declared an independent state in the Rif. He intentionally styled it as a republic, not an emirate or caliphate or empire. He understood well that his challenge was to unite historically antagonistic tribes, and that doing so required a new sort of system.

Abd el-Karim never laid claim to the Moroccan throne and never disputed the legitimacy of the French-backed sultan, Moulay Yousef. He also insisted that, upon the war’s end, he would step down as president of the republic and hand the role to someone else. Indeed, this is one reason the legacy of Abd el-Karim’s republic remains somewhat uncomfortable for Morocco’s monarchy: It’s a reminder of the alternatives to dynastic rule.

Having declared a republic, Abd el-Karim spent much of the next three years trying to build his new state while seeking support from abroad. The revolt was incredibly popular among Moroccans, and Abd el-Karim faced pressure from tribes in and near the French zone to attack French outposts as well. He finally did so in April 1925, achieving considerable initial success but also opening new front against a significantly more capable foreign power.

The new offensive sent France into a panic. Hubert Lyautey, the protectorate’s top official and architect of the French colonial project in Morocco, had seen the possible threat and begged for troops. After initially downplaying these pleas, France now acted more quickly. Philippe Pétain, “the Lion of Verdun,” was sent to direct hundreds of thousands of reinforcements.

Spanish legions advance on Ajdir, Morocco, on Oct. 16, 1925.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

This was the moment when the Rif War galvanized a wide audience around the globe. Leftists in France responded with horror at the news of French planes leveling remote mountain villages and Spanish forces using mustard gas against the Riffians. Reporting in U.S. newspapers and magazines turned U.S. opinion in favor of the Rif upstarts. Two U.S. foreign correspondents, Vincent Sheean and Paul Mowrer, reported from the field and even obtained interviews with Abd el-Karim himself.

In 1925, the same U.S. aviators who had volunteered to fight for France in World War I as part of the Escadrille La Fayette returned for another, less heroic mission. Branded the Escadrille Cherifienne—suggesting that they fought on behalf of Sultan Moulay Yousef himself—they led bombing missions against rebels in the Rif. But the escadrille disbanded after just four months. U.S. newspapers reported their mass bombing of Moroccan civilians and the State Department threatened the aviators with denaturalization for violating the Neutrality Act of 1794.

In the end, the Riffians, forced to fight on two separate fronts against two separate empires, were too heavily outnumbered to succeed. Although the writing was on the wall earlier in the spring of 1926, Abd el-Karim rejected the French and Spanish terms of peace and fought on. A popular Riffian verse from the period mourned, “Oh Moulay Mohammed [Abd el-Karim], look out, for we are going to die.”

On May 27, 1926, Abd el-Karim faced the inevitable. He surrendered to France—assuming Spain would have treated him more harshly—and was sent into exile. He vowed to only return to Morocco when all foreign armies had been expelled from Moroccan soil. But even after the country’s independence in 1956, he stayed in Egypt.

Left: A car burns in Meknes, Morocco, on July 25, 1955, after violent anti-French demonstrations. Right: French soldiers stop Moroccan motorcyclists heading toward Meknes on Oct. 27, 1956, following riots in the city a few days earlier. Boissonnade/AFP via Getty Images; Bettmann Archive/Getty Images; Jacques Belin/AFP via Getty Images

Indeed, Abd el-Karim’s war continued after 1956. In the early 1950s, Abd el-Karim, working from exile, helped organize anti-colonial guerilla force called the Army of Liberation. Initially, it attacked French and Spanish interests, but in 1958, two years after independence, Riffian Army of Liberation veterans turned on the new Moroccan government. They stormed police posts and offices of the Istiqlal party—a group conservative Arab nationalists who formed the monarchy’s new ruling elite. The Riffians were angry at the lack of government investment and at the appointment of non-locals to important local government posts. Among the rebels’ demands was Abd el-Karim’s return from exile. For his part, Abd el-Karim pointedly asked the new Moroccan leadership, “Are you a government, or a gang?”

After some initial losses, the Moroccan army under Crown Prince Hassan brutally suppressed the revolt. Its leaders were either arrested or fled into exile. But tensions between the region and the central government remained, driven by many of the same concerns as in 1958. Twenty-five years later in 1984, riots erupted in a number of northern Moroccan cities. Hassan, now on the throne himself, responded with a warning: “The people of the North have already known the violence of the crown prince; it would be better for them not to know the violence of the king.”

The very public animosity between the central government and the Rif began to fade with the death of Hassan II in 1999. The new king, Mohammed VI, extended if not an olive branch then at least a twig. He created an Equity and Reconciliation Commission to report on past human rights abuses and began investing in infrastructure in the north.

Thousands of protesters crowd the streets of the northern Moroccan city of al-Hoceima on on May 31, 2017, during a demonstration demanding the release of a “Popular Movement” leader Nasser Zefzafi . Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images

But while tourism investments and global shipping infrastructure helped some parts of the region, many Riffians felt left behind. Tensions boiled over in 2016, with the killing of Mouhcine Fikri. A local fishmonger, Firki had climbed into a trash compactor to save fish confiscated by police and was crushed to death. His death sparked a wave of regional outrage against the corruption and neglect of the Moroccan government.

The grassroots demonstrations around Fikri’s death grew into the Hirak, meaning “movement” in Arabic. One of its more extremist leaders, Nasser Zefzafi, often appeared publicly in front of an image of Abd el-Karim and protestors carried the red and white flag of the former Rif Republic in the streets. Perhaps most poignantly, a popular song went, “Moulay Mohand is dead / But his sons are still [living] / They will continue peacefully / They will finish their marches.” The overarching theme was pretty clear: For many Riffians, the work of Abd el-Karim remained unfinished.

A protester from the Rif movement hurls a stone at security forces during a demonstration against corruption, repression, and unemployment, sen in Morocco’s northern town of Imzouren on June 10, 2017. Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images

For a moment, Abd el-Karim and the Rif Republic held immense political promise. The narrative power of their story—of a confederation of rival tribes coalescing under a charismatic leader to protect their land and culture from predatory outsiders—inspired the next generation of anti-colonial resistance. For the Moroccan state and the Alawi dynasty, that promise was fulfilled with independence in 1956, after which Abd el-Karim’s legacy could be relegated to a small part in a broader heroic narrative. For some Riffian activists, however, Abd el-Karim’s struggle for true independence continues.