Mercenaries - toys of global politics

Muhammad was 17 years old when the war started in his native Syria. He was preparing to enter the technical faculty in Homs. At the same time, Adnan was 30 years old and working in Homs as a carpenter. He had just had his third child.

Muhammad and Adnan fought on different sides during the Syrian civil war. According to Spiegel, Muhammad served in the army of dictator Bashar al-Assad and cared about stability, and Adnan joined the rebels because he believed in the revolution. Both dreamed of living in a peaceful, united country. Now, nine years later, they meet again across the crosshairs - but not in Syria. Now the two are fighting some 2.000 kilometers away - in Libya.

In this north African country, the forces of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj are fighting against a rival, commander Khalifa Haftar, for supremacy in the country. Saradj is primarily supported by Turkey, while his opponent has the support of Russia. Adnan makes money as a mercenary in Sarraj's militia network, and Muhammad has joined Haftar's Libyan National Army. Both are asking the same question: How did this happen?

The story of Muhammed and Adnan, two fellow citizens from Homs who today fight against each other in the North African desert, illustrates the tragic development of the conflict in Syria. It is also a lesson on the modern way of waging wars.

Governments involved in military conflicts increasingly rely, not on their own countrymen, but on foreign mercenaries. Countries like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Iran ignore the borders and sovereignty of other countries and send mercenaries to foreign countries because they don't like the regimes in power, because they want access to natural resources - or because their enemies' mercenaries are there. This is another example of countries trying to fill the vacuum created by the accelerated withdrawal of the United States, Spiegel writes.

Hiring mercenaries is a way to wage war on the cheap. Regional actors enter the fray with little risk and for a relatively low price. Leaders can go to war without having to account for the death toll. On the other hand, the fighters themselves have little protection because they depend on those who pay them. Mercenaries are fighting in numerous conflicts around the world, including in Syria, Yemen and Libya. People like Muhammad and Adnan have become the playthings of global politics.

An attractive offer

When, after the war broke out, Adnan joined the Hamza Division (part of the Free Syrian Army - FSA), he was convinced that Assad could be overthrown. He also achieved personal success on the battlefield and rose to division commander. However, the FSA began to lose territory, and with the help of Iran and Russia, the Assad regime pushed the rebels into the northwestern province of Idlib, where they could only survive with the support of Turkey.

In recent years, Adnan has barely fought Assad. Instead, he was helping Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's army remove Kurdish militias from the border region.

"We depend on Erdogan", says Adnan in a telephone conversation with "Spiegel".

"We have to fight where he tells us".

Adnan was not surprised when the Turkish intermediary gave him a new assignment last December. His task was to collect as many men as possible for the war in Libya.

At the time, Adnan could barely find Libya on a map. And as for the conflict there, he knew only what the Turks told him: that the internationally recognized government was fighting to maintain power against a "coup" and "terrorist".

Still, the offer they gave him sounded tempting: To fight on the side of Sarraj in Libya, Adnan was to be paid US$2.000 a month, far more than he was earning in Syria. At the beginning of January, the Turks transferred Adnan and 30 comrades on a Turkish Airlines plane to Libya. That was the first time in his life he flew on an airplane.

In Tripoli, Sarraj's regime was eager for help. In the previous months, the prime minister lost almost all the territory he controlled, except for the capital. He hoped that Erdogan's mercenaries would change the situation on the ground.

Adnan and his men were placed in apartments in Tripoli. As he told Spiegel, they were given weapons and trained by the Turkish secret service MIT. Then they were sent to the front.

With the help of around 7.000 Syrian mercenaries and the support of drones, Turkey managed to turn the tide of the civil war in Libya, which made Erdogan the plenipotentiary ruler of this African country with the largest oil reserves on the continent. General Haftar not only had to come to terms with the loss of Tripoli, but was also forced out of the strategically important coastal city of Sabratha.

Despite this, Adnan regrets coming to Libya. From the several telephone conversations that "Spiegel" journalists had with him in recent months, it was possible to notice that his desperation was growing. He says the fighting is often more intense than it was in Syria.

"Every day we send 100 wounded home and get 300 new ones," he says. Unlike Syria, he says he does not see the purpose of the operation in Libya. "I fought against the Syrian regime because I believed in the future of my children. And look where I am finished now".

There is no choice

His friends in Syria accuse him of selling out the revolution to make money in Libya. But even if he wanted to, Adnan says he can't just leave the front.

The Turks allow only the wounded to go home, so some of his comrades deliberately shot themselves in the leg. Others boarded boats with refugees in order not to reach Europe. Adnan says that he would also try to go to Europe if it were not for his children in Turkey.

"I have no choice but to keep fighting," he says.

Adnan's compatriot Muhammad is on the other side of the front in Libya. He too has the feeling that he is not in control of his own destiny and that he is being controlled by foreign forces. He says that the main reason why he agreed to speak for "Spiegel" is his desire to highlight the experience of Syrians in Libya. Like Adnan, he did not want to reveal his last name for fear of possible consequences.

Muhammad was a young man when he joined the Desert Falcons, a militia that fought alongside Assad's forces against the rebels. A few years ago, this militia disbanded due to internal struggles for supremacy. A section of the Desert Falcons joined an army unit armed and controlled by Russia, Assad's most important ally. Since then, Muhammad answers to Moscow.

In January, the commander of the unit asked him if he was interested in fighting on the Russian side in Libya. He was told he would be paid $1.000 a month and would have a month of paid vacation every three months.

Russia does not officially participate in the conflicts in Libya, but with the help of a military subcontractor, the so-called Wagner Group, it controls part of the front. Wagner Group is a Russian private company that provides security services. It has close ties to the Kremlin and is a significant supporter of Haftar, along with the UAE and Egypt. "Spiegel" further explains that Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Haftar his man in North Africa and that he was probably nervous when he saw that he was losing territory to the forces of the Erdogan-Saraj alliance in recent months.

As Muhammad told, an intermediary working for the Russian side, established several recruitment offices in Syrian cities. For each fighter sent to North Africa, the middlemen receive 200 euros. After years of civil war, large parts of Syria have been destroyed, and it is almost impossible for young people to find work. It didn't take long for Muhammad to make up his mind. In one of the offices, he signed a contract in Arabic and Russian, pledging to fight on Haftar's side for at least three months.

After that, he was transferred with 50 other men, mostly under 30 years old, to the Russian military base Hmeimim, not far from the Syrian coastal city of Latakia. They had two weeks of military training there.

Like a wringer

The Russians gave the mercenaries identification cards marked "Friend of Russia" to accompany them through checkpoints in Libya. Then they were transferred by private plane to the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Together with his comrades, Muhammad fought in several places - in southern Tripoli, on the coast, and in the last few weeks in the east of the country.

According to the United Nations, around 2.000 Syrians fought on the side of Haftar and the Wagner group in May. However, Muhammad estimates the number to be closer to 5.000. Immediately after the losses suffered in the battle for Tripoli, the Russians sent a large reinforcement. As he explained to Spiegel, the Assad regime even released detainees from Syrian prisons and sent them to fight in Libya.

Muhammad sleeps during the day and fights at night. He says he feels drained.

"I wonder what I'm doing here," he says. He adds that he heard that the Turks pay their fighters much better, so he's thinking of changing sides. "In Syria, I fought to win. Here it's only about money."

Mercenaries like Muhammad and Adnan, who sold themselves to foreign powers, have been around for centuries.

However, no country perfected this hybrid approach to warfare as early as Iran. General Qasem Suleimani, who was killed by the Americans in January at the airport in Baghdad, was the co-creator and leader of the monstrous apparatus of militias from several different countries.

Back in the early 1980s, the Lebanese Hezbollah became an Iranian front. However, Iran only began to expand its power when Soleimani took command of the KUDS forces, the elite foreign wing of the Revolutionary Guards. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, Shiite seminars were organized, fighters were recruited, cells and militias were established.

Victory is the only option

The military power of Suleimani's organization was shown in full light in Syria. Assad's dictatorship was on the verge of collapse and relied almost exclusively on the Alawite minority to which Assad belongs. Moreover, the brutality of the regime forced more and more people to join the rebels.

"The Syrian army is useless", Suleimani allegedly told an Iraqi politician. In order to preserve Iran's long-time ally, Suleimani first sent Hezbollah to Syria, and then fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan - a total of about 50.000 people. Weapons, ammunition and spare parts arrived via Iraq and saved Assad - until the Russian air force definitely turned the situation around in 2015.

Iran's mercenary network has developed into a multinational organization that can quickly assemble fighters into divisions where the Iraqis receive orders from the Lebanese or Afghans, all under Iranian command. Finally, all chains of command flowed into Tehran, even after Soleimani's death.

The model is applied elsewhere. Turkey, the UAE and Russia are also bringing together different fighters for the conflicts they are involved in, making ending them even more difficult. Compromise is not part of the agenda of these emerging powers. Winning is the only option, especially against foreign opponents. These interventions not only prolong the violence, but make reconstruction almost impossible.

It is also unlikely that the parties to the conflict in Libya or other battlefields will succumb to exhaustion, as Western foreign policy experts often like to assume. Any dictator or rebel leader can at any moment ask his protector for more airstrikes, more ammunition, more fighters...

Mercenaries are not from yesterday

Mercenaries like Muhammad and Adnan, who sold themselves to foreign powers, have been around for centuries. The Thirty Years' War, for example, was fought exclusively by mercenaries. In the XNUMXth century, colonial Western powers often used them in their campaigns in Africa. However, in recent years, hiring mercenaries has taken on a new dimension.

While the US and Great Britain simply outsourced certain services to private security firms like Blackwater during the Iraq war, mercenary hiring has now become a key element of military strategies being developed by many governments. On some fronts in Libya, you won't find many Libyans at all - the fighting is mostly carried out by mercenaries from Syria, Sudan and Chad.

I will fight anywhere, for anyone

The Libyan government currently holds around 400 enemy mercenaries, mostly from Sudan and Chad, in a prison in Misrata. One of the prisoners introduced himself as Muhamed Idris to the Špigla journalist who visited the institution. He is from Darfur, a region in western Sudan where civil war has raged since 2003. Idris fought for the Sudan Liberation Army against dictator Omar al-Bashir. Three years ago, he joined the troops fighting for Haftar in Libya.

Sudanese mercenaries helped Haftar take over vast territories, and Idris rose to the rank of colonel and had 450 mercenaries under his command. The operation paid off. He says he earned between US$1.000 and US$3.000 a month. And everything he and his men managed to loot during the operations was sent by truck to Darfur.

When circumstances changed, as Turkey intervened in recent months, it became clear to him that he and his men, he says, had come to be regarded by the Russians and Haftar as second-class fighters. While the Wagner group quickly withdrew its mercenaries from the front in Tripoli, the Sudanese were left on the battlefield. Many died, while others, like Idris, were captured.

He is convinced that sooner or later he will be released from prison. As he says, the UAE promised him that they would do everything in their power. When asked what he will do when he gets out of prison, he says: "Continue to fight."

In Libya. In Sudan. Wherever. And for whomever. He can't imagine doing anything else anymore.