Ongoing back-and-forth mercenary transfer operation | Over 150 Syrian mercenaries prepare to return back to Syria and similar number replaces them in Libya’s Turkish military bases
Turkish intelligence services and Turkish-backed factions prepare to send a new batch of Syrian mercenaries to Libya. SOHR sources have reported that over 150 elements of different Turkish- backed factions and “National Army” are being prepared to go to Turkey in the upcoming hours, to be transferred to Libya before middle of this month. On the other hand, a similar batch will deport Libya in the same plane that will bring the new comers.
According to reliable sources, the process of exchange of mercenaries will take place every 15 days, to maintain the maintain constant number of mercenaries in the bases in Libya.
It is worth noting that Turkey has been recruiting mercenaries for a monthly salary of 500 US dollars, and has been transferring them via military and civil airports before sending them into Syrian by land transportation through Turkish-controlled military crossings in the northern countryside of Aleppo.
SOHR activists had documented late June a transferring process of the Syrian mercenaries from and to the Libyan lands, where a patch of 200 fighters returned and arrived in Syria on June 28, via the Hawar Kilis crossing in the Aleppo countryside. Meanwhile, over 300 fighters are still in the Turkish camps inside Syria preparing to be transported later to Libya.
SOHR sources confirmed that a similar number of Syrian mercenaries joined the fighting factions inside Libya on the same day when the last patch arrived in a military transport aircraft (Yushin.)
SOHR activists documented the number of mercenaries who have been transferred to Libya since the beginning of June rises to over 500 mercenaries belonging to Sultan Murad, Hamza Division, Amshat and others. Meanwhile, around 535 fighters returned back to Syria in the same period of time.
The withdrawal of Syrian mercenaries from Libya has been still completely suspended, despite all the ongoing international calls for their immediate departure, and the continuous media coverage for that issue, especially by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, amid Libyan-Libyan understandings.
Meanwhile, such calls went in vain as the Turkish government keeps transferring Syrian mercenaries to Libya in light of a back-and-forth transfer operation, as there are over 7,000 Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries inside Libya till the moment.