Mercenaries recruited from Syrian rebel groups are playing a large role in Turkey’s involvement in foreign conflicts, but their companies are plagued by corruption and exploitation, writers John Lechner and S. Asher said in a National Interest article on Monday.
Turkish intelligence and military forces have worked closely with rebel groups opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011. As the conflict has slowed to a stalemate, Turkey has found other uses for the opposition soldiers it backs.
After using the opposition fighters in its campaigns against Kurdish-led groups in north Syria in 2016, Ankara recruited many of the same fighters to support its allies in the civil war in Libya and in Azerbaijan during its 2020 war with Armenia.
As well as serving Turkey’s foreign policy aims abroad, this mercenary programme has ensured that “commanders maintain the revenue streams and power they have grown accustomed to from the bloody (Syrian) civil war,” Lechner and Asher wrote.
But the picture is not so rosy for recruits, who could find themselves with no choice but to fight in a conflict that some are not even fairly paid for.
One recruit was forced to remain in Libya against his will, and when he finally arrived home with an injury was paid only “a quarter of the $10,000 he was owed,” said Lechner and Asher.
Recruiters have adopted any measures to fill their ranks, including bringing children under 18 years old and sweeping prisons, the writers said. Several Kurdish men have ended up fighting in Turkish mercenary adventures abroad against their will, they said.
And, due to endemic corruption, the fighters are often left with substandard equipment as the more valuable weaponry is sold on the black market, Lechner and Asher said.
