In 1952, when France was conscripting Algerians to fight in the Indochina War, Boumédiène went to Cairo, where he studied at the Al-Azhar University. It was there he first mmet Ahmed Ben Bella. He joined the National Liberation Front (FLN) in the Algerian War of Independence in 1955, adopting "Houari Boumédiène" as his nom-de-guerre (from Sidi Boumediène, the name of the patron saint of the city of Tlemcen in western Algeria, where he served as an officer during the war, and Sidi El Houari, the patron saint of nearby Oran). He reached the rank of colonel, then the highest rank in the FLN forces, and from 1960 he was chief of staff of the ALN, the FLN's military wing.