Major General Smain Lamari (Arabic: إسماعيل العماري, 1941 – August 28, 2007) was the head of an Algerian intelligence service, the Department of Counter-Espionage and Internal Security.
[1] Lamari died from a heart attack in 2007, and was buried in the Cemetery El Alia reserved for high ranking Algerian officials, in the presence of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
[2][3] Born in Ain Bessam (Algeria) in 1941, the son of a taxi-driver from the Titteri region, he quit high school to join the National Liberation Army during the Algerian War of Independence (reportedly in 1959).
[5] Lamari's successes in the war against the Islamists included the elimination of the first core of the GIA (Meliani, Chebouti and Bâa Azzedine), infiltration of terrorist maquis (in particular in Chrea), and the destruction of the FIDA commandos which assassinated many intellectuals, journalists and artists between 1992 and 1994.
Yves Bonnet, the head of the DST, had required assistance against Islamic terrorism to his Algerian counterparts, and Smain Lamari was delegated by Mohamed Mediene, in charge of the DRS, to be the French's interlocutor.
[4] Despite Lamari's adamant opposition to the Islamists and his membership in the Eradicateurs camp (Eradicators), he played a key role in the negotiations with the AIS, the armed front of the FIS, beginning in 2000.