Tracing the years, 1990-1998, this text asserts that the Algerian civil war has striking similarities, indeed continuities, with that of the Ottoman regency, the French conquest and colonial occupation, and the national liberation war. It sees the Groupe Islamique Arme's Emirs as the heirs of the Barbary corsairs, the chieftains of the colonial era and the colonels of the independence struggle's Armee Liberation Nationale (ALN).