BBC: Azerbaijan used Syrian mercenaries as "cannon fodder" in Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - Four Syrians, who had been enlisting for sentry duties in Azerbaijan, have said that they were unexpectedly thrown into battle against Nagorno-Karabakh, the BBC says in a fresh article.

It was back in August of this year that the rumors started to circulate in rebel-held areas of northern Syria: there was well-paid work to be had overseas.

"I had a friend who told me that there is a very good job you can do, just to be at military checkpoints in Azerbaijan," one man told me. "They told us our mission would be to serve as sentries on the border - as peacekeepers. They were offering $2,000 a month! It felt like a fortune for us," said another, identified in the article as Qutaiba.

Both applied for the job through Turkish-backed rebel factions that make up what's known as the Syrian National Army, a force in northern Syria opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

In an area where few earn more than $1 a day, the promised salary seemed like a godsend. Thousands of men signed up and travelled to Azerbaijan, via Turkey, on Turkish military transport aircraft. But the work wasn't what it seemed. The men, many of them with no military experience, were being recruited for war - as they soon discovered when they were taken to the front line and ordered to fight.

"I didn't expect to survive," Qutaiba says. "It seemed like a 1% chance. Death was all around us."

Although Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey deny the use of mercenaries, researchers have amassed a considerable amount of photographic evidence, drawn from videos and photographs the fighters have posted online, which tells a different story.

"My first battle began the day after I arrived," says Ismael. "I and about 30 guys were sent to the front line. We walked for about 50m when suddenly a rocket landed near us. I threw myself to the ground. The shelling lasted for 30 minutes non-stop. Those minutes felt like years. It was then I regretted coming to Azerbaijan."

The reason why Azerbaijan would recruit Syrian fighters, according to Michael Kofman, the head of the Russia programme at the CNA military research center in Washington DC, says the goal seems to have been to minimize Azeri troop casualties.

"They took quite a few casualties early on, especially in the south-east, and these mercenaries were essentially used as expendable assault troops to go in the first wave," he says. "They calculated quite cynically that if it turned out these offensives were not successful early on, then it was best these casualties would be among mercenaries not Azerbaijani forces. Nobody cares about mercenaries."

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Centre for Global Policy, also in Washington DC, who has spoken to dozens of Syrians who took part in the conflict, agrees that they were "used as cannon fodder".

"They're cheap. They can be rushed to the front line with very little preparation, as was the case in Azerbaijan - essentially people to whom you can strap a Kalashnikov and tell, 'Go capture that hill, go capture that forest,'" she says.

In the war against Artsakh (Karabakh), Turkey supported Azerbaijan militarily, also by transferring terrorist mercenaries from Libya and Syria to fight against Karabakh. Armenia was the first to report on Turkey's deployment of thousands of Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan. International media publications followed suit, as did reactions from France, Russia, Iran and Syria. The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army has already unveiled footage from the interrogation of two such terrorists captured on the front.