“Desperate to return to their country after Turkey lied to them.” This is how the American journalist Lindsay Snell titled her investigation, which cited testimonies of Syrian mercenaries sent by Turkey to support the forces of the Government of National Accord, after Turkey promised them to receive salaries ranging from 2000-3000 dollars per month.
In her investigation, Snell indicated that the Government of National Accord did not commit to the payments as promised to the Syrian factions fighting within their ranks in Tripoli, according to testimonies of a number of mercenaries from several Syrian factions.
Snell cited a member of the Hamza Brigade as saying that he receives $ 2,000 every month and a half instead of every month, while some members of the Failaq Al-Majd, who have been in Libya for more than three months, say they have received their salaries only once since their arrival, adding that they have received promises of receiving the rest.
3000 dollars a month, and later they got 2,000 dollars in the first month, and then 1400 dollars in the second month, and they didn’t get paid in the third month.
Breaking into Houses
One of the Syrian mercenaries named Ahmed, who is part of a group that the American journalist Lindsay Snell interviewed, indicated that after they had not been paid in the third month, they had stolen money and items from houses to cover their expenses.
A member of the Hamza Brigade added to the journalist that a member of GNA forces within his fighting group is delivering Syrian mercenaries to stores in Tripoli to sell what they stole, noting that many of them are now looting and stealing instead of fighting, especially on the frontlines.
While Hilal Hashem, a Libyan businessman from Tripoli, pointed out that one of the merchants tried to inform the police as a Syrian mercenary was trying to sell him stolen goods, but the police did nothing to control armed groups in Tripoli, adding that he and many civilians in Tripoli were waiting for the entery of the Libyan National Army forces to Tripoli, describing the Syrian mercenaries as extremists and terrorists affiliated with ISIS.
Promises Evaporated
Zain Ahmed, one of the mercenaries from the Hamza Brigade, says that most of the other promises made by Turkey have not been fulfilled, adding, “They told us first that if we stayed and fought for six months, we would get Turkish citizenship and these were lies”, noting that they were informed if someone is killed in Libya, their families will obtain Turkish citizenship, and Ahmed says, “Now that many Syrians have died in Libya, we know this is a lie too.”
Snell cited Ahmed as saying that when a member of the “Ahrar al-Sharqiya” was killed in a battle in February, his widow in Afrin was granted about $8,000, but she did not obtain Turkish citizenship and now lives in a camp in Syria.
Ahmed stresses that the Turkish leaders who briefed them on Libya’s mission greatly misrepresented the dangers they will face, after informing them that the fighting will be safer and easier than the fighting in Syria.
After arriving in Libya, Ahmed remained in a house in Tripoli with 10 other Syrian fighters and one Libyan fighter from the GNA forces who was accompanying them whenever they left the house, which was a well-equipped “villa”, and it was almost certain that the house’s owners left it when the clashes intensified and moved closer, as described by Ahmed.
After several weeks of fighting, Ahmad and the rest of the Syrian mercenaries moved to Salah al-Deen after the clashes intensified, as Ahmed indicated that the situation was worse than Syria, with the bodies still accumulating in the streets without being picked up.
“We are being slaughtered”
“It was not what we used to in Syria. It is street fighting in the residential areas of Tripoli. We don’t have the right weapons or the right skills, we are being slaughtered,” Ahmed said.
When the Syrian militants began defying orders, Ahmed added, Libyan soldiers allied to the Government of National Accord beat them, noting that one of the GNA fighters shot a Syrian mercenary in the leg after he refused the orders three times.
Snail indicated in her investigation that in the end, Ahmed was forced to pay $700 to his Syrian leader to travel to Syria, and quoted him as saying that there were about 100 desperate Syrians, who wanted to return to their country and some of them paid $500 and some of them paid up to $1,000. They were put on a plane with the dead and wounded and allowed to return to Syria.
Turkey continues to operate flights to transport hundreds of Syrian mercenaries every week, as the number of fighters ranges from 5,000 to 17,000, and flights continue despite the Coronavirus pandemic.
