Turkey intends to send more Syrian mercenaries to Libya
Last Tuesday, one of the Turkish ships based in the eastern Mediterranean was intercepted by Libyan forces
AFP/ADEM ALTAN – The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Turkey intends to send a batch of Syrian mercenaries to Libya in the coming days, SAHR (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights) revealed on Saturday 5 December. They claim that the Syrian pro-Ankara factions stopped more than 20 days ago after the return of the previous batch from Libya to Syria in the middle of November.
It has been confirmed that Turkey intends to send mercenaries to Libya again, having been sent 18,000 previously.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to intervene directly in Libya’s civil war in December last year by supporting the NAP (Government of National Accord), according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.
They also claim that a total of 10,750 returned after completing their contracts and salaries. The latter range from 1,500 euros to 4,000 euros for the injured and 10,000 for the families of those killed in combat.
These mercenaries have included up to 350 underage children, who were recruited by Sultan Murad who took advantage of their personal difficulties. The number of dead is reported to be close to 500.
Besides the Syrians, SOHR confirms that about 2500 Tunisians -many of whom are linked to Jihadist groups- are among the private mercenaries sent to Libya by Turkey.
Turkey had already sent fighters to Libya and Azerbaijan before. Moreover, it is preparing to send them to Kashmir to fight against India, at the same time as to Karabakh, Southern Kurdistan and Yemen, according to ANF News. 2580 were the Syrian soldiers sent to Azerbaijan for the war with Armenia, out of these 3542 came back giving up everything.
Last Tuesday, one of the Turkish ships was intercepted by the Libyan forces based in the eastern Mediterranean. “Attacking the Turkish interests in Libya will have serious consequences, and these elements (that attack the Turkish interests) will be seen as legitimate targets,” said the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement. It warned about possible reprisals and maintained that they should be allowed to continue the journey to the west of Libya.