After studying in the local native school ("école indigène"), he was transferred to a school for troops' children at Koléa, and then joined the French army, studying at the Strasbourg military school in Algiers where non-commissioned officers were trained. After independence in 1962, he remained in the Algerian army, and started rising through the ranks. He went to Moscow in 1964 to receive military training at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy. Upon his return in 1965, he was named Director of Materiel in the Ministry of National Defense. Soon after Houari Boumedienne's coup, he was put in charge of the Saharan 2nd Motorized Infantry, based around Ain Sefra. In 1968, he was sent to Egypt to help guard the Egypt–Israel line of control, which at the time (just after the Six-Day War) witnessed regular artillery bombardments and aerial bombings. After returning from Egypt, he was put in charge of training Algeria's first parachutists, with Soviet help, at Biskra.