in the beginning, it was mainly a guerrilla war in which algerian "maquisards" (guerrillas) attacked french settlers. the fln called on muslims in algeria to unite and join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the algerian state, sovereign, democratic, and social, of the principles of islam" since it considered that independence was not enough. french interior minister françois mitterrand, responded that "the only possible negotiation is war'". initially, the higher-ranking french military was targeted, but in august 1955, the fln targeted the civilian population as well. that began with the slaughter of 123 french-algerian civilians, the murders of women and children, and the mutilation of corpses in philippeville by the fln on august 20 1955 and the death of some 50 muslims. the fln was also engaged in civil wars with the algerian national movement ("mouvement national algérien; mna"), founded by messali hadj. the mna had a similar policy of violent revolution and total independence, but the fln largely wiped out the mna in algeria. the mna's remaining support was among algerians within france. their fighting during the war also took place in france itself and is called the "café wars" in which supporters of the fln and the mna supporters one another in french cafés and restaurants; 5,000 people were killed. french troops took revenge after the battle of philippeville and killed 1,270 (accodring to france) to 12,000 (according to algeria) local algerian muslims. moreover, after the attack, the french increased their troops to 250,000.