Sadat: Erdogan’s arm to suppress the inside and terrorize the outside

Fatima Abdul Ghani

The Ottoman dictator could no longer fully rely on the Turkish army due to a lack of mutual trust, so he went ahead with the establishment of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard-like entity to play internal and external roles.

In this context, the Austrian research center “Mina Watch” said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan relies on the controversial security company “Sadat” to play suspicious roles in both Libya and Syria, in an attempt to create a “Turkish Revolutionary Guard” that goes beyond official institutions.

The Center for Middle East Issues pointed out that “Sadat” appeared in light of the power struggle between Erdogan and the army, as a parallel security organization, which has been active for years in Syria, and is now playing an increasing role in Libya.

It is noteworthy that the company “Sadat” was founded in 2012 by retired general Adnan Teneri Fardi as the first and only company in Turkey that provides consulting services and military training in the field of international defense.

It was established by 23 officers who described a retired officer from various units of the Turkish Armed Forces, and on February 28, 2018 it was awarded a certificate of “Private Security Company” by Istanbul Province in accordance with Law 5188 and the executive regulations.

According to its definition, “Sadat” aims to “build defense cooperation between Islamic countries in order to help (the Islamic world) to take the place it deserves among the great powers”, and to provide “advisory and training services.”

But the company played suspicious roles in Syria, and trained terrorists fighting in the Arab country, according to Mina Watch.

According to Turkish and American media reports, with the instructions of Erdogan, Tanrii Fardi undertook the training of terrorist groups in Syria and Libya, and carried out all the dirty work that the Turkish president did not dare assign to the army.

Leaders of the Turkish opposition say that Teneri is highly trusted by Erdogan, and therefore he is used to fight the dissidents internally, and to train jihadists to fight in his external sectarian wars.

According to the Turkish “Deccan” website, Adnan Fardi transported some of these terrorists who were trained to Ankara to track down and liquidate the opponents and enemies of Erdogan, and used them to suppress the Turkish and Syrian Kurds, and used them to smuggle takfiris to Europe to carry out terrorist operations.

“Erdogan is increasingly aware of the danger that he cannot rely solely on the Turkish army to support his regime,” Michael Rubin, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, said in a press interview.

He continued, “This is the reason why he is constantly seeking to establish a militia along the lines of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in order to expand his field of work at home and abroad.”

He noted that Erdogan has become more and more dependent on “Sadat” instead of the Turkish army when it comes to sensitive military missions abroad.

As for the historian Hamid Bouzarslan, he asserts in his statement to the Turkish State newspaper, that Sadat is a private company for military consulting, but it is one of the branches of the unofficial forces that includes police forces and paramilitary formations that constitute the army of the semi-parallel state in Turkey.

Daniel Pipes, the American historian and president of the Middle East Forum, agrees that Erdogan has strengthened his powers over Turkish institutions: the army, intelligence services, police, judiciary, banks, the media, the election council, mosques and the educational system.