British report documents Erdogan sending Syrian mercenaries to Karabakh

Fatima Abdul Ghani

Social media users have circulated a video clip documenting the participation of Syrian mercenaries in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia after Turkey pushed them into a war in which they have no part. In this regard, British newspaper The Independent published a report documenting testimonies of Syrian mercenaries sent by Turkey to fight in Karabakh.

According to the newspaper, hundreds of Syrian mercenaries are fighting alongside the Azeri forces. Their main motive is to obtain money, even if at the expense of their own souls in a remote battle, while some of them do not even know the geographical location of Azerbaijan. Turkey is exploiting the very difficult material and living conditions that the Syrians suffer from, forcing them to agree to participate in the fighting in exchange for payment.

The newspaper also quoted testimonies about the killing of Syrian mercenaries in the battles, saying that 55 bodies of Syrian mercenaries were returned to northern Syria.

As is the case in Libya, the Turkish private security company SADAT plays an important role in recruiting Syrian mercenaries to fight in Azerbaijan.

The newspaper pointed out that the Turkish and Azerbaijani governments’ denial of the presence of Syrian mercenaries in the Karabakh battles contradicts what it obtained from documents and confessions recorded in audio and video.

It also reported strong opposition from Syrian families in Idlib to send their children to Nagorno-Karabakh, especially after a large number of bodies of their children returned, while anger and resentment escalated among families that did not receive salaries or compensation for their children killed in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, others went on to launch an awareness campaign warning Syrians against going to fight in Karabakh by posting videos on social media.

Turkey continues its political and military support for the Azerbaijani side, as it showed pictures published by the Armenian Ministry of Defense of Turkish-made Bayraktar drones bombing Armenian army bases along the front line. This comes amid Ankara’s rejection of attempts to calm the conflict diplomatically between the two rival countries, accusing the Minsk Group of bias for the Armenian side.

A new video clip also showed one of the Syrian fighters of the Turkish-backed Hamza Division in one of the areas that witnessed clashes several days ago.

In the video, which was shared by Syrian activists and foreign journalists, one of the fighters showed dead bodies on the ground in their military clothing, describing them with insults and vulgarities.

The militant explained that he is fighting as part of the Farouq Brigade, a group within the Hamza Division.

Earlier, groups monitoring the armed conflict in Karabakh published a video showing militants speaking in a Syrian accent during the fighting operations in the region, adding that the Syrian mercenaries were brought by Turkey to support Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia.

Despite the official Azerbaijani public denial of an armed Turkish presence on the ground, the reports reveal more of the secrets of the Turkish role and its methods, which is the mercenary method adopted by Turkey in Libya, Syria and elsewhere, as is transported them to the Karabakh region. In this context, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 400 fighters from the Sultan Murad and Hamza divisions and other factions are preparing to be transferred by the Turkish government to Azerbaijan over the next few days. The number of Syrian fighters who have been transferred there until this moment has reached at least 1,450 after the transfer of a batch of 250 fighters in the past week.

A few days ago, the Syrian Observatory indicated that the Turkish intelligence services continued transferring and training large numbers of members of pro-Turkish factions to fight in Azerbaijan, as the number of elements arriving there increased to about 1,200 fighters, most of them from the Syrian Turkmen component.

Syrian Observatory sources reported that the Turkish government heavily involved the “mercenaries of the Syrian factions loyal to it” in the battles of the Karabakh hills between Azerbaijan and Armenia after it told them that their role would be limited to protecting the oil fields and borders in Azerbaijan.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times earlier published a detailed report by Laura King, in which she explained the details of Turkey’s accompaniment to Azerbaijan in its hostility to the Armenian state, without there being any political or geographical dispute between Turkey and Armenia, except for concerns and escalation against a country that Turkey considers a geographical separation between itself and its Turkish-majority countries.

The Turkish regime has not only supported terrorism militarily and logistically, but also enlisted its media outlets to promote terrorist organizations and spread hatred against all peoples and countries that reject its policies.