Turkish-backed mercenaries | Nearly 800 Syrian fighters killed in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh

With the cessation of military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, following the Russian-brokered agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Turkish government has stopped the transfer of Ankara-backed Syrian mercenaries, who have been participating in military operations alongside Azerbaijani forces.

This comes after military operations in Libya were halted, as well as the return of mercenaries to Syria in batches. However, the question arises as to whether the Turkish government will stop using Syrian fighters as mercenaries to serve its own regional and international interests, or will it transfer them to another geographical area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented further fatalities among Syrian mercenaries after reports have confirmed that dozens of them had been killed in military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya.

More than 789 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed in the battles of Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, of whom 496 were killed in Libya and 293 in Karabakh, while hundreds of them were injured or contact was lost with them, after Turkish intelligence turned them into mercenaries, exploiting their loyalty to Turkey and luring them with financial intencives.

According to SOHR statistics, the number of recruits who arrived in Libya rose to nearly 18,000 Syrian mercenaries, including 350 children under the age of 18, of whom 10,750 returned to Syria after completing the duration of their contracts and receiving their financial dues. It is worth noting that the number of jihadists who were transported from Syria to Libya reached 10,000, of whom there were 2,500 Tunisians.

It is worth nothing that some 4,000 regime-backed fighters were transferred to Libya by a private Russian security company, a large part of whom returned to Syria after the end of the military operations.

The number of Syrian fighters transferred to Azerbaijan has reached 2,580 mercenaries, of whom 342 returned after forgoing everything, including their financial incentives.