The Middle East and North Africa region is a hotspot for mercenaries. This is partly due to the many conflicts in the region which attract them, coupled with the fact that mercenaries are cheap and efficient. 

In this episode we discuss the history of mercenaries in the Middle East and how these groups have continued to rise in Syria, the differing reception mercenaries receive once they return home from armed conflict and what communities and organisations are doing to discourage people from joining mercenary groups. We also consider the role mercenaries will play in the MENA region going forward. 

Our guests are:

• Bassam Al-Ahmad, co-Founder & Executive Director of Syrians for Truth and Justice 
• Dr Sorcha MacLeod, Associate Professor in the Centre for Private Governance, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen

Your hosts are: 

• Dean Peacock, Project Director of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom’s initiative on men and militarism
• Reem Abbas, Communications Coordinator for the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace Programme

Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace is a podcast from WILPF, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, in which we uncover the transformative power of feminist peace and explore how men can be active proponents of achieving gender equality and peace. .

In this clip, Dr Sorcha MacLeod, explains to us the definition of a mercenary. For more insights, listen to the full episode.

In this clip, Bassam Al-Ahmad explains to us how Syrian men became mercenaries in other conflicts. For more insights, listen to the full episode.

Episode Script

Dean Peacock: [00:00:00] Last time, we spoke about mercenaries, professional soldiers hired to serve in a foreign army and how they’re thriving in the Sahel region. But in recent decades, the Middle East and North Africa region has also become a hotspot for mercenary activity. 

Reem Abbas: So what’s behind the rise of these groups in the MENA region?

And what role do they play in politics, foreign relations, and counter terrorism operations there?

Dean Peacock: Welcome to the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace podcast, where we journey into the intersection of masculinities, violence and feminist solutions. I’m Dean Peacock, project director of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace Initiative at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the oldest women’s peace organisation in the world.

Reem Abbas: And I am Reem Abbas, communications coordinator of the MMFP program. From the Arab [00:01:00] Spring, to the Syrian conflict, and more recently, the war in Gaza, the Middle East has been wracked with violence in recent years. This upheaval has seen both regional and global players using mercenaries, such as the Wagner Group, to try to gain control over the area.

But how have mercenaries become such an important part of the conflict there? And what happens to the men who participate in these armed groups once they return home? 

To help us understand the complexities of how mercenaries operate in the Middle East and North Africa, we are joined by Bassam Al-Ahmad, the co founder and executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, who have carried out extensive research on Syrian men being recruited as mercenaries.

Dean Peacock: And we’re also joined by Dr. Sorcha MacLeod, associate professor in the Center for Private Governance in the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen. Drawing on her recent experience as the former [00:02:00] chair of the UN Working Group on mercenaries, I asked Dr. MacLeod to explain who mercenaries are and whose interests they serve.

Dr Sorcha MacLeod: The terminology around mercenaries and mercenarism is, is really complicated in, in some senses, and very simple in another sense. The term mercenary is defined under international law, and it’s a very complicated and cumulative definition. You have to look to Geneva conventions, and it defines a mercenary using six different elements.

Three of them are inclusive and three of them are exclusive or excluding, if you like. So to be defined as a mercenary under international law, you have to have been recruited specifically to participate in an armed conflict that you did, in fact, directly participate in an armed conflict, and that you were motivated by private financial gain that is substantially more than you would receive if you were in the regular armed [00:03:00] forces.

So those are sort of the three inclusive elements. You can see the, or you can hear that they’re very subjective. How do you determine what somebody’s motivation is? How do you prove that somebody actually did participate in an armed, in an armed conflict. These are very opaque actors. So those first three elements are really very difficult to, to establish.

And then you have excluding elements. So if somebody has been sent on official business, they do not meet the international legal definition of mercenary. So they’ve been sent as a trainer, for example, or they’ve been sent as, as part of a peacekeeping mission. You also have the rule that if somebody is a national of a party to the armed conflict, then they will not be defined as a mercenary.

So if we, to give an example, if you, if you look at the Ukraine conflict, anyone who is a, who’s a Ukrainian national or a Russian national, they would not meet the international legal [00:04:00] definition of mercenary. And if you’ve been integrated into the, or you’re a member of the armed forces or integrated into the armed forces of a state, then you would not meet the definition of mercenary.

Now, as I said, it’s a problematic definition because it’s really hard to be defined as a mercenary under, under that definition. And also, in terms of the Geneva Convention, it’s only addressing the prisoner of war status of individuals. And so what the Geneva Convention does is it says if you are defined as a mercenary, you don’t automatically get prisoner of war status and all of the rights and assosicated with that. 

The difficulty is that if you look at the International Convention on Mercenarism and you look at the African Convention on Mercenarism, that very complicated definition is almost entirely included in those two international instruments. We see the term mercenary being used a lot. But people don’t necessarily pay attention to what that legal [00:05:00] definition actually is.

And then we see other language being used, things like private military company, private military and security company, private security company, private security provider, all of those different things. And they don’t have a legal definition under international law. So the, the language, you know, as a starting point is very complicated, but from a human rights perspective, you can say, well, in some senses, it doesn’t actually matter if somebody’s a mercenary or not, because nobody’s allowed to commit war crimes. Nobody’s allowed to commit crimes against humanity. And in my academic work, I always talk about how it’s perhaps more useful to think about these actors as being on a spectrum. And so on one, on one end of the spectrum, you have full blown mercenaries who are providing combat services, fighting services in a situation of armed conflict, whether it’s an international armed conflict or a non international armed conflict.

And then you have other actors that are providing different kinds of services that don’t amount to combat, [00:06:00] to fighting services, but they might be operating in a situation where there’s an armed conflict and they’re providing, um, security services, guarding people and assets, and all of these actors, whether they’re operating in peacetime, providing security for migration centers or borders, or whether they are, as I say, operating in a situation of armed conflict, they’re all capable of violating human rights, and in certain circumstances, they’re capable of violating international humanitarian law.

And the use of language becomes very, very political because states have different views about whether the use of force should be outsourced to non state actors, to private actors or other actors that may or may not be connected to the state. 

Dean Peacock: You talked about some of the criteria, the kind of inclusion and exclusion criteria.

One of the pieces of course that I think people associate [00:07:00] with the term mercenary is the gender of the mercenaries. And so it’d be great to get your thoughts on the relationship between mercenaries and gender and particular conceptions of masculinities. 

Dr Sorcha MacLeod: When you think about mercenaries, traditionally, maybe even 10, 15, 20 years ago, they were in groups that were essentially very small. They weren’t large in number. You, you know, you would maybe, you’d be lucky to see a mercenary group in, in double figures. Now I’m talking about the definition of mercenary, you know, that I’ve just been talking about under, under international law. And when you look at those kinds of mercenaries, you know, they’re very similar.

They have an ex military background almost exclusively. They usually have some very specific skills. They’re very often, you know, ex special forces or ex marines, um, you know, high level military skills and competencies. And so when they’ve come out of the, the armed forces, then they are looking to use [00:08:00] those skills and those competencies, and so they become ripe for recruitment as mercenaries.

And that’s how it’s always been, at least in, you know, contemporary mercenarism. But what we’ve seen in the last few years, and you mentioned, you know, you mentioned the Wagner Group as, as one example. Is that the scale and the size of these types of mercenary actors, um, has increased significantly. So, you know, when you look at the deployment of the, of the Wagner group, you’re talking, you know, in some instances, you’re talking thousands of individuals being, being deployed, whether that be in Central African Republic, whether it be in Ukraine, you know, in Ukraine, you’re talking tens of thousands.

In all of these circumstances, you’re talking about significantly larger numbers than we’ve seen historically. And initially, with the Wagner Group in particular, they followed that classic model of being ex military. And so they have always [00:09:00] reflected, you know, the masculinities around the, you know, that you see in the, in the armed forces that then get, uh, reflected in the, in the private sector.

You know, it’s, there’s, there’s often this reference to revolving, you know, a revolving door, people coming out of the armed forces going into the, into the, into the private, the private sector. Um, and that’s very, very clear. And that’s certainly how Wagner started. And I’m sure Bassam will talk, we’ll talk about how, how that’s shifted, because what we then started to see was that there simply weren’t enough people willing to be to be recruited. 

And that’s when we started to see individuals being recruited from conflict affected countries like Syria, for example, not just Syria, but very specifically Syria being being targeted. And not just by Russia, but by Turkey, for example, as well. And so you’re seeing people who don’t necessarily have a military background, they might have fighting experience [00:10:00] because they’ve, you know, they’re coming from a conflict affected country. But they’re not necessarily military, having military experience at the sort of, with the sorts of skills and competencies that we used to see with these kinds of actors. 

And there’s a very much a hierarchy within these mercenary groups as well. So you’ve got the, the masculinities being of, of, of the armed forces being reproduced in these, um, organisations, but you’ve also got racialised elements as well. So there’s a, you know, there’s a real intersectional issue arising, uh, arising here because you see that the guys who are coming from European countries are, um, are at the top of the hierarchy.

The, the guys who are coming from, um, Syria and other countries, particularly from the global South, are somewhere below in the hierarchy. So they get paid less. They’re, you know, they’re treated as more, you know, as more disposable. And I think it’s important to [00:11:00] say that one of the other changes that is then seen is that you’ve got a mix of people being recruited in the sense that some of them are being recruited willingly for economic reasons, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of advantage being taken of the, but you’re also seeing people being trafficked for the purposes of, of mercenarism.

And you see, um, That people are put under duress or even fraudulently induced to become mercenaries. We’ve also seen that threats have been made against the, you know, women and girls and families to, again, to, to force people to become mercenaries. So, you know, there’s been quite a lot that, you know, those gendered elements are, are shifting and changing.

Dean Peacock: No, it’s so interesting and so helpful to, to hear you kind of describe a little bit of the history and to help us understand the complexities of the people who are involved as mercenaries. In our project and [00:12:00] within the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, I think there’s sometimes an assumption that the face of militaries is a male face because of a deep, um, socialisation into militarism, which is the norm for many men. 

It certainly was for me in South Africa, but I hear you saying that in fact, amongst some of the men who are mercenaries, they have been recruited under enormous duress. And in fact, have been very reluctant to become involved in war and militarism in those ways.

And I think it’s, it’s very useful to be reminded of that, that there’s no kind of easy pathway between manhood and militarism, that there’s often a process of coercion and that that can manifest in many different ways. So, um, thank you for that insight. 

Reem Abbas: So if you can tell us Bassam, about the history of mercenaries in the Middle East, and then tell us about how such groups continue to rise in Syria. When did this start and how did [00:13:00] this materialise? Also taking into consideration what Professor Sorcha said about, you know, how basically mercenaries keep the conflict going for a very long time.

Bassam Al-Ahmad: The issue of mercenaries and foreign fighters in Middle East in general, before speaking about Syria, um, the main observation is that this kind of behavior is related to the conflict, whether we are speaking about like internal conflicts or whether we are speaking about like international conflict. So whenever we are speaking about like foreign fighters or recruiting or enlistment of fighters or mercenaries in the Middle East, we are speaking mainly about like conflict. Whether we are speaking about like internal or international conflict, as I said. Uh, speaking about Syria, the way that we see Syria, that it became kind of like a lamp for like, or a hub for mercenaries from outside of Syria, but also in the same time, which was like [00:14:00] interesting for us to see as a Syrian, uh, NGO to see later in the, the second part of the Syrian conflict, how the Syrian fighters themselves became potential mercenaries in other conflicts. 

So, uh, in the beginning, in the conflict in Syria, especially when speaking about like the year of 2012 and 13, we saw this thousand of like jihadist or foreign fighters coming to Syria in order to fight. Like the Syrian government or Bashar al-Assad regime. 

We know that, you know, the definition of like mercenaries could not be applied for, um, like those type of like fighters, but we, we saw that other way or other like fighters who were mainly recruited by Iran, like uh, Afghan or like the fighters who came from Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq. If we match the legal definition of the mercenaries, I, as [00:15:00] Professor Sorcha said, we think that it could be matched with, uh, um, motivation or like the, so if we match the definition and the practice that Iran did regarding to the Iraqi fighters or to the fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan and recently also how Russia brought like the Wagner Group to, to fight in Syria.

So most of the Syrian organisation, including STG, they don’t consider all foreign fighters in Syria as mercenaries simply because like, you know, the prevailing or the current legal framework it’s very limited This is why always we do this kind of like distinguish between the foreign fighters, jihadist groups who came to fight Assad, but also the mercenaries or the groups that we could consider as the mercenaries who really came or recruited by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and also the Lakrashan government. So until 2014, [00:16:00] 15, 16, like the scale of the conflict became, uh, limited. What we saw that there was like tens of thousands of former fighters in Syria. They saw themselves that they are without job. So they like ended up with like the camps of like IDPs. Then another wave or another shape or another era of like recruitment or fusing Syrian’s as mercenaries started. Uh, when we start in the beginning, I remember when we start working on the issue of mercenaries, when the initial information came to us that Russia, Wagner and Turkey, SADAT or SADAT group, they start recruiting Syria and Libya. And in that time, there was a really small amount of information and testimonies about that. 

Later on, it became more frequent. Uh, we start like we were able to document that, uh, Russia and Wagner group like recruited thousands of Syrian to guard or to fight in the east [00:17:00] part of Libya in order to support like Haftar forces.

But on the same time, also SADAT or SADAT it’s like a Turkish security company, they also started, uh, to recruit, uh, Syrian, uh, fighters from the opposition party to fight with, uh, uh, to support al Dababa or the, the West part of, uh, government in, uh, in Libya. Uh, and they were sent like there simply because like most of them, they were like in a very under a very, uh, hardship economic, uh, situation and also something because related usually in Syria, like the men work. So when they, they work and they get money and they bring money for the, for the family. So when the, those fighters from both sides, by the way, from like government and the opposition, when there was like, like decrease or like a narrow scale of like fighting in Syria, so thousands of them, they saw themselves without jobs.

So there’s, they need like another source of income, unfortunately, [00:18:00] like using them in Libya later on in Azerbaijan. Later, how like also because Russia used Syrian in Ukraine, but most recently, and this is a new report will be published soon by the Syrians for Truth and Justice. We documented like a testimonies and we brought some new testimonies and stories about like Syrian fighters from the opposition part were recruited by a Turkish security company to Africa to Niger.

One last note, uh, or like observation. Uh, even inside, like this notion of like military company, something like that even was created inside Syria. So we saw inside Syria, a Syrian company called Daesh, ISIS hunters. So they were also fighting alongside with Wagner in the desert part of, in the middle part of Syria. It’s like kind of a huge desert to fight ISIS members. 

[00:19:00] Speaking from the military perspective, if we just like put the definition of like foreign fighters or mercenaries beside. They’re using this fighter by the Syrian government and Russia and Iran, actually, they make a lot of change in the conflict because those group who came from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or different country, they were really able to, uh, I’m speaking from like military, only like pure military perspective.

They will able to retake a huge amount of like Syrian land or re recover or retake it back to the Syrian government. So they, they fought ISIS in the desert on the east part of Syria, because in the same time, in that time, the international coalition and the four Kurdish forces were also fighting ISIS from the other side of Syria. But also at the same time, a Syrian government or Assad regime, they used this, especially if we are speaking about like the fighters recruited by Iran in the north part of [00:20:00] Syria, where they were able to push to retake a lot of Syrian territory and give it back to a Syrian government or Assad regime.

So, of course, when we are speaking about like motivation, I don’t think any like, you know, like when I’m speaking about like a Iraqi or like, uh, Afghani or like fighters from Afghanistan, I don’t think like they came after like thousands of kilometers to defeat Bashar al-Assad regime or defeat the Syrian government.

I think according to our like testimonies, the main motivation was for money. It was only money. 

Reem Abbas: We’re very interested in Wagner as one of the groups that kind of rose to fame during the Syrian conflict. And you said that they helped retake territory and also secure business interests and take back some, um, some important assets from, from ISIS Islamic state at the time.

Can you tell us about how you know this empowered Wagner? And because [00:21:00] it gave them access to resources, and it also gave them access to critical infrastructure, and it gave them access to men that they started recruiting, and they became a very important commodity after that, that were kind of exported to fight in other countries, like you said, in Libya and beyond.

Bassam Al-Ahmad: Wagner, honestly, it’s like a very interesting example when we zoom in, in the Syria context. And one of the thing I don’t dislike according to my analyse. One of the thing led the Syrian government or the Assad regime to use mercenaries or foreign fighters from outside of Syria, because when we are speaking about the years of 2012, 13, and 14, there was a huge scale of like clashes or like fight between the Syrian army and other different kind of like groups. Whether we are speaking about like jihadist group likes Jabhat Al Nusra, ISIS, Al Qaeda, opposition, different groups, or like the, [00:22:00] the, the opposition group. So in the same time, what’s happened in that time, like thousand or maybe tens of thousands of Syrian soldiers, they defected from the Syrian army, like soldiers anofficers, they left.

Uh, the Syrian army. So this is why I think we, we think that Syrian government, they asked Russia, Iran, Iran Revolutionary Guard to, to provide them with the foreign fighters, whether if we call it them like, you know, if we, if the legal of the definition applied to them or not, but because there was like a lack of fighters, soldiers by the Syrian government.

What’s happened when the Wagner like, mainly by Russia because you cannot imagine in that time they were used to use a military base in Latakia in the coast of like Mediterranean. And you cannot even imagine that something will happen. A lot of recruitments, thousands of thousands of fighters could come to Syria without the help or complicity by the Russian government.

This is what, [00:23:00] you know, for us, it was like very easy to observe, but mainly also immediately in parallel with the huge military involvement by the Russian or the direct military. Um, involvement by Russia in the Syrian, uh, context, 

The other observation or one of the main observation, I think in one time we discovered or we realised that like Wagner, they are acting not outside of the Syrian government, but because the government was very weak or the state was like collapsing.

So in many times. Wagner did kind of contracts or some kind of like, you know, like they start, uh, like collaborating with what’s so called like al Ba’ath groups. Ba’ath party, they’re supposed to be an ideological party close to the government. Suddenly al Ba’ath party, they used to have like fighters. Then Wagner come and they did kind of collaboration with them.

Wagner also come and they collaborated with what we mentioned that like, uh, ISIS [00:24:00] hunter or Daesh. In, in many places and according to like our, uh, like information in the beginning they started as okay, like a security or a military like company, then day by day, when they start like controlling, uh, like areas, uh, we had some testimonies about that they used to also have some kind of private or special place in some airports in some military airports.

And in many times, even for the Syrian government, they were not able to check or to go to this kind of military base. It was created by not only by Wagner, but also by the Iranian militia. If you are speaking about Bukamal, especially in 2000, like 17, 18 and 19, even the Syrian government or the Syrian state or the Syrian army was not able to control them.

Or even to, you know, control the behavior of this group. This is why they became very strong. This is why they start, start not only like recruiting Syrians, sending them to Libya, but also later [00:25:00] to Ukraine. Um, and they were like supporting the Russian aggression against Ukrainian people. 

Dean Peacock: I’m curious.

So when I think about some of the research we’ve been conducting as part of our project in places like the democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, very different setting, but men who participate in armed groups there often are not regarded with great respect when they come back to the communities that they are from.

And I’m curious with mercenaries, how are they received when they come back and what’s the impact of the fighting that they’re involved in? 

Bassam Al-Ahmad: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting like question because honestly, um, we had a lot of conversation inside the Syrian community. So a huge part also of the Syrian people, they saw these fighters or like who were recruited or if you can call them part of the merscenaries as a victim because they called them like a victim of, a victim of the war.

As, as you mentioned, I mentioned also in my early intervention that [00:26:00] because they were kind of like a former fighters, they fought when there was like a huge fight between the Syrian opposition and the Syrian government. When Russia and Turkey, they had this kind of like a SETANA agreement with the SETANA agreement started, there was kind of like a huge de escalation.

So when the de escalation started, thousands of these fighters, they saw themselves without any kind of income, then the notion of being a mercenaries outside of Syria started. So part of people, they saw them like, uh, like a mercenaries because they said that you sell, sell out, or you are not any more like fighting for a cause against Bashar al-Assad or for democracy or like that. 

But other part of people or community, especially like if they are like speaking about like their relatives, their families, they saw them, people like were pushed because if we take the example of the north west part of Syria, when it’s became like millions of refugee or [00:27:00] IDPs. You know, like they put it there with tens of thousands of fighters without any income, without jobs, without any kind of integration.

So those people, and also with a huge or a heavy social role that they are the man and they should bring money to the tent or to the house. So they, for me, I’m thinking like strategically of the future of, of the Syria. I think there should be a huge plan to integrate these people in the society. There should be like, kind of like a real honest conversation about how we can protect them, how we can integrate them and not allowing other companies or other like states to use them, not only against other, maybe not against Armenian or Azerbaijani or like, uh, Libyan, but also against Syrian people.

It’s a huge problem inside our community. We should face this problem. We should try to solve it and try to not allowing any [00:28:00] other powers outside of Syria to use them against other like people in Niger or Libya or Azerbaijan, but also against other Syrian people inside Syria. 

Dean Peacock: Sorcha, I wanted to bring you back into the conversation.

Dr Sorcha MacLeod: Yeah, I think it’s so interesting listening to, to Bassam talking about the impact on these returning mercenaries on, on Syrian communities. And I think it’s really a function of who’s been recruited because I think the consequences when they go back home, wherever home is, is different depending on where they have been situated within the mercenary hierarchy, if I can put it in those, in those terms.

If you look at the, you know, we’ve been talking about Wagner. If you talk about, um, Wagner and the, the original, you know, Wagner recruits who were ex military with particular skills, what’s been very clear about Wagner is that there’s a, you know, it’s not just about fighting for money. It’s also, there is also very strong, quite fascistic, neo, you know, neo [00:29:00] Nazi ideology that’s associated, associated with them. So their reception when they go back to their, their home may well be very, very different from, uh, you know, what Bassam was talking about, about Syrians returning home who maybe didn’t have any choice because of lack of socioeconomic opportunities or because of being coerced into becoming mercenaries, as, as I mentioned earlier. 

There’ve been really disturbing reports about, um, some of the, the prisoners that, uh, Russian prisoners that Wagner recruited.Wagner targeted particularly, you know, violent criminals, criminals who had been convicted of violent crimes. And there have been, you know, increasing reports of, if they have survived the conflict um, in the war in Ukraine and they have returned home. There have been reports of violence taking place in those communities.

That’s a real, real concern. And so I think [00:30:00] you see that, as I say, you see that hierarchy. playing out and the reception, I think, will be very, very different. There’s only really been one prosecution, one successful prosecution of anybody who fought for, for Wagner. And there’s an individual who came from Kyrgyzstan who was recruited into, to Wagner, went home to Kyrgyzstan, having been living in Russia, and then was prosecuted in, um, and convicted of mercenarism under the, the Kyrgyzstan criminal code.

So, you know, there, you know, there’s a completely different response, you know, that he, he wasn’t perceived as a, as a hero by the state. He, he was perceived as a, as a criminal and in violation of the, of the, the, the criminal code. So I do think you can’t say that there is any one particular way that an individual will be treated upon the return, return to home. You can see that playing out in the different [00:31:00] examples that we’ve been, we’ve been talking about 

Dean Peacock: Returning, I think, to this theme of intersectionality and the hierarchies within mercenary groups. For me, certainly, I’ve often thought of them in much more monolithic ways, so it’s very helpful to get this nuance and complexity. 

Reem Abbas: Professor Sorcha, I want to ask you about how did this happen? How did, uh, mercenaries become an important part of the conflict in the Middle East? Uh, we’ve seen them in Syria. We’ve seen them in Iraq. We’ve seen them in other contexts. We’ve seen them also in Libya. When we talk about the larger MENA region. 

How is this connected again to international and regional interests, as well as the total collapse, you know, of, uh, of the traditional armies.

And is this going to be the future? 

Dr Sorcha MacLeod: It’s a consequence of, of lots of different, different elements. You’re seeing some of the, the, the great power states and some states [00:32:00] that are seeking great power to, you know, taking advantage of, of situations. You’re seeing, um, countries that are either in full blown, you know, civil, civil war, you know, like, like, like Libya and Syria.

And you’re seeing countries where there are insurgencies. There are lots of different scenarios where mercenary type actors are being, are being used. And what we’ve seen with, with Wagner is that they are being used as a geopolitical tool. They’re also being used as an economic tool in terms of, um, getting access to, uh, to natural resources.

That’s a, that’s a big, a big part of their activities. That’s, that’s what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to consolidate Russian power, um, and they’re trying to get access, um, to, to natural, natural resources. When you look at different countries, you’ve, you know, we’ve, we’ve seen that [00:33:00] different countries have been unable to deal with security issues.

Um, they’ve been unable to deal with insurgencies, for example. You know, we’ve seen that the international community has, has not been able to provide solutions. And so what we’re seeing is that states like Russia, like Turkey are stepping in, they’re stepping into that, into that void. And they’re offering, they’re offering support.

It’s not always very successful. If you look, you know, Wagner was used in, I know it’s not the MENA region, but in Mozambique, for example, against al Shabaab, and was, was very heavily defeated. They were not, they were not successful, successful there. The Wagner has subsequently, um, developed the model and developed essentially proof of concept was in Central African Republic in, in, in particular.

I think, you know, Libya is a little bit different, but, uh, you, you know, you’ve seen that model being, [00:34:00] being developed and other countries are looking at how the international community has been unable to, to respond to the Wagner group and the atrocities that have been, that have been committed by it. 

And to a certain extent, I think, you know, the, the, the allied forces in Iraq in particular have, you know, have a case to answer here in a, in a sense, because, you know, when, when countries like the US and the UK deployed private military and security companies to to Iraq and, you know, we can, there’s a, there’s a whole debate and it comes back to this definition of direct participation in hostilities. You could say, well, they didn’t meet the definition of, full blown definition of mercenary under international law because they were not engaged in, in combat, in offensive combat.

And in contrast to, to, to Wagner and, and, and those who’ve been recruited by Sadat. You’ve still got the outsourcing [00:35:00] of the use of force to these actors who are, you know, who appear to meet, you know, lots of different elements of the, the definition of mercenary, but they don’t meet the few, the full, you know, cumulative definition. And so we had, you know, we have these actors there in large numbers, making a lot of money, carrying weapons, being involved in human rights violations in lots of, lots of different ways in Iraq. And countries in the, in the West didn’t want to address the impunity and the lack of accountability and the lack of regulation for these kinds of these kinds of actors.

In the aftermath of Iraq, and to a certain extent, Afghanistan, Western countries realised that there needed to be some sort of regulatory framework, which is why we ended up with the Montreux Document and the International Code of, uh, International Code of Conduct for private security providers. But still, there’s a huge regulatory gap [00:36:00] here.

At the same time, you don’t have a lot of countries being party to the, the International Convention on Mercenarism, and you know, the African Convention on Mercenarism. So it’s 37 state parties to the International Convention. And if you look at Africa, only about half of African countries are party to the, to the African Convention.

So we’ve got a sort of situation where states are very, very ambivalent about, you know, whether they want to, to criminalise mercenarism. or not. Because all of the international instruments, the International Convention and the African Convention envisage that states will criminalise Mercenerism at the, at the national level.

The Montreux Document envisages that, that states will, uh, regulate the, the outsourcing of the use of force to private, military and security companies. And even if you look at the Montreux Document, there’s, uh, I want to say 57 states are, states are participating in the Montreux, [00:37:00] the Montreux Document. So you can see that states are really ambivalent about how they deal with these kinds of, these kinds of actors.

It shows in how they responded in, in the international regulatory, in the international regulatory sphere. Now, having said that, there are lots of states that regulate these kinds of actors at the national level without being party to, um, the, the, the international convention, for example. And so they, they criminalise mercenarism or they criminalise elements of, of mercenarism.

So, you know, I’m, I’m based in the, in Denmark and the Nordic States, they criminalise, uh, the recruitment of mercenaries. And those are sort of very longstanding, uh, legal, legal provisions, but they don’t criminalise other elements of mercenarism. So they don’t necessarily criminalise the act of being a mercenary or the financing of mercenarism.

So, you know, there are a lot of regulatory gaps here. And I [00:38:00] think what we’re seeing is, essentially, is there’s a need for these kinds of actors, or there’s a perceived need for these kinds of actors. States are willing to pay for them. Um, states are willing to, to provide them with, with this new, new constellation of of of mercenarism. States want to want to offer them. States want to want to buy. And the international regulatory framework has been unable to to stop that happening. 

Dean Peacock: Sorcha you are obviously talking about some of the regulatory frameworks and in our project by some we pay attention to those. But we’re also thinking about community based interventions that might be useful in decreasing men’s involvement in armed conflict. And so I’m wondering what it looks like on the ground in local communities. 

What kinds of actions are people taking, whether at a community level, family level? Through an NGO, perhaps to discourage, to perhaps address some of [00:39:00] the root causes, the economic causes that are compelling people to join mercenary groups. Kind of what’s happening at the community level in response to, to this?

Bassam Al-Ahmad: One of the problem when we are dealing in Syria of this issue, most of people they deny, they say there is a lot of media outlets, by the way, they didn’t report about like that, except the UN, Syrians for Truth and Justice, ISJAC, and some few organisations. 

So I think like, one of them, like the first step in order to, to address this issue to be to admit that there is like foreign powers, Iran, Russia, Turkey, that are using this Syrian or they’re using other mercenaries inside Syria or they use Syrians outside of Syria.

So this is why when someone don’t admit that there is like an issue there, simply there will be also no discussion, there will be no open conversation about how we can defeat this kind of issue. Knowing that in [00:40:00] the same time, since we are speaking about like, kind of like a divided Syria, a country that, you know, we are in the 13 or like 14 years of like a conflict we’re really speaking about a very hard economic situation.

So except that, like the shaming that many organisation is doing, which I don’t think it will be the only solution. I think we really, as you mentioned, we should deal with the root of the issue. The reason behind, behind having this kind of like behavior is that there is no political solution because there is like a conflict and there is no real willing by the international community to have like a political solution. 

From outside if you listen to the UN you hear this it’s a very nice word about there is like a political solution and it’s a Syrian led led talks. It’s not correct at all. It’s like a conversations happening from outside happening between Syrians, but from inside there is like five or [00:41:00] six foreign armies in the Syrian territories. Turkey and some other countries. They support or they use the opposition for their interests and agenda. 

Similar with Iran and Russia, they use the Syrian regime. So it’s more than, it’s not like it’s no more a Syrian Syrian conflict anymore, anymore compared to 2011 and 12. So, uh, honestly, there is, I didn’t like see any kind of like open real initiative local to really, uh, defeat or to, at least to address this kind of issue, except some like media reports and kind of like shaming for the people who are doing that while I’m thinking that the solution could be, you know, multi approach. One of them, it’s really, we should keep demanding that the international community to address the Syrian, like with the political solution.

When you say also political solution or the transition, it should be really inclusive. It should be [00:42:00] include all people, including like victims or even the victim of mercenaries or like the families. Other issue also it will be related to like sanctions while in the same time that we are supporting, you know, the sanctions against like the criminal lords of war, like the criminal, the, the, the entities who are involved in the violation, the impact of or invisible impact of sanctions

on everything in Syria also create this another level of like situation for economic. So this is also could like dealing with the like impact or like the, um, kind of like invisible impact of the sanctions, uh, to be also could be part of the solution trying to also integrate these people having, it’s not only like sending the aid, I mean, sending the aid to the most like needed people is important, but trying to find like a solution for those people to be integrated, to really find a job for them, because [00:43:00] for me, I think 90%, according to our observation, at least if we are speaking about the people of Syrian people who were like deployed to another country. For us, like 90 percent of them, the, the main motivation for them was money simply because they were like no job for them.

And they, according to our like norms or traditions, they should support the families and they should support like the children, the wife and so on and so on. So there is no one like solution. There should be initiatives. It should be started from that. Admit that there is something happening and there is like a problem.

Not only for our present cause, but also for the future of Syrian country. But also like keep putting like a real political solution. I think it could be like, you know, a real path to any kind of like, um, uh, or, or like a real path to the final solution for this kind of, um, topic. 

Reem Abbas: I really just wanted to comment on what you said about [00:44:00] reintegration, which is very important.

Because of your experience as a researcher and as an organisation that has a presence, you know, on the ground, have you seen such instances over the past few years where, you know, men returned back to communities in Syria and began reintegrating? And how did this affect the social fabric of the community?

And how did it also affect like the local economic relations? Uh, it would be interesting also to know if there is a specific part of Syria where many of the Syrian men are coming from and are returning to. 

Bassam Al-Ahmad: Honestly, I really should apologise for the, maybe the negative answer. Unfortunately, there is still, and I wish I could find like any positive examples about, like for the people or like the fighters who were like deployed and returned to Syria.

Unfortunately, the stories that we hear, it’s totally opposite. We hear stories of people or mercenaries, they return [00:45:00] to Syria and they used to use drugs. They start committing domestic violence, uh, in the tent or in the house. They start also believe or feeling that they are useless. They cannot offer anything to their families.

Unfortunately, we still, at least like speaking from the personal observation or, um, like as like Syrians for truth and justice, we really didn’t yet at least, see any kind of like positive examples of like initiatives or like steps happen to reintegrate those people to help them, to support them, to support the families, to support even like the other members of the families who are like facing a different kind of like violation from them.

And there is also in some cases one of the story like of the case that we followed the person were deployed to Libya. He was killed during the clashes. Then the family of the man kicked out [00:46:00] his wife from the main house and they told her simply that you don’t have anything here. You can just like go back to your family.

And you don’t have anything since our like, we lost our son. He was killed. So it is also another challenges like Syrian community they are facing when there is, uh, return, uh, like, or despite when these fighters are returned. Simply because there is no initiative simply because there is no admit to this, uh, issue simply because there is no plan and simply because there is no fund for this kind of like activity. 

The international community, most of them, even they don’t agree with this narrative. They don’t agree when we say that there’s like mercenaries happening. I remember when I was living in the southern part of Turkey, very close to the Syrian border in 2000, late 2011 and beginning 2012. And I saw thousands or a lot of jihadists, they go through to [00:47:00] Syria from Turkey to Syria. So in that time, it was kind of a bad signal for us to saying that there is something happening. It will happen in this country. And I personally spoke with many like diplomats about these kind of issues, saying that, of course, we should like do a change in Syria.

But those people like jihadism or jihadist people, they are causing the same problem like Assad regime. They are not part of our solution for democracy and freedom. They are part of the problem. Later on in 2014 15, it’s became an issue. And then the international community start to fight this kind of issue.

So I’m really calling for like, like Syrian NGOs, international governments to address this issue, to admit that there is an issue, a dangerous issue happening inside Syria, but also using Syrian’s outside in other conflicts. In order not, you know, like to, to face another problem after five or 10 years, because when we are speaking [00:48:00] about like people, they simply go to another place to fight and kill people.

If they return and this country, it’s possible for a new country, for new governments, for new parties to use them again to pay them and use them against other Syrians or against any other population in the Middle East. So please address this issue. Please, let’s just like collaborate to put this issue on the table, try to find a solution, an inclusive solution in order just like to fight this, to fight this like phenomenon. Not only like to report and shaming, which is good, but also we should really think about integration, about how we can like fight or like deal with the root of the issue. 

Dean Peacock: You know, what avenues for accountability are available? If we think about the legal approaches, where can one take mercenaries to trial?

Are there any legal precedents we should be learning about with regards to a criminal legal response? 

Dr Sorcha MacLeod: This is a hugely [00:49:00] problematic, um, issue because, as I was saying earlier, there are only 37 state parties to the International Convention on Mercenarism, which means that a lot of states simply don’t criminalise mercenarism.

There is a huge accountability void when it comes to these kinds of actors. And that’s, you know, that’s been a problem with contemporary mercenarism, you know, goes back to the 19, the 1970s. We don’t really see criminal accountability of these, these kinds of actors. You know, there are reports that the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia, for example, wanted to, to, to prosecute Afghan mercenaries who were known to be in the Balkans during the Balkans war.

They simply weren’t able to do it because they had all disappeared and they were, they’d either completely just gone back to Afghanistan, but actually what would, most of them had been, had been killed. And so criminal accountability for these kinds of actors. is [00:50:00] very difficult. It’s very difficult because states haven’t implemented the legal frameworks at the national level.

It’s difficult because they’re opaque by their very nature. They try to operate in the shadows. And, you know, you can see, I talked about the, you know, one conviction of a Wagnerite in Kyrgyzstan, but out of tens of thousands of Wagnerites, you know, that’s, that’s really very, very problematic. And, you know, there was an attempt to bring some Wagner personnel, uh, personnel before the, the criminal courts and investigative committee in, in Russia for, for atrocities that were, were committed in Syria, an individual who had been, uh, you know, tortured and killed allegedly by, by Wagner personnel. That case, you know, just completely ground to a halt in the Russian, the Russian courts. There were administrative delays, there were legal delays, obstacles were put in, in the path of the family bringing the, bringing the, the, the claim.[00:51:00] 

And so, international criminal law, domestic criminal law is, is problematic. You know, there’s never been a case at the International Criminal Court. You know, there were, obviously in, in, in relation to Wagner, there, there were different groups who were looking to try to, to bring prosecutions of particularly, you know, the Wagner leadership.

But that all, of course, disappeared with, with, with the death of, of Prigozhin and Utkin and other leaders. So, criminal accountability of individuals is very, very difficult to achieve. You have to be able to find them, you have to be able to prosecute them. There has to be a legal framework to be able to, to be able to do that.

From a human rights perspective and from an academic perspective, accountability is not just about the criminal accountability. And I’m actually, I’ve just started a big new research project called Mercury, which is looking at the accountability void and looking at how we can hold these kinds of actors and the states [00:52:00] and states, because we have to bear in mind that states have the primary obligation to ensure that human rights are protected, to ensure that international humanitarian law is implemented, and that perpetrators are investigated. And if appropriate, prosecuted and convicted. 

And, you know, we do have legal frameworks and regulatory frameworks. We do have mechanisms under international human rights law, which have never been tested. You know, there’s never been any case involving mercenarism in the European Court of Human Rights or the African Court of Human Rights or the Inter American Court of Human Rights or any of the international criminal tribunals.

So it’s not all necessarily about reinventing the wheel. It’s about saying, look, let’s, let’s look at what we have. Can we, can we get some sort of accountability for the victims of these, these kinds of, uh, these kinds of actors? If the conclusion of the research that me and my team are doing, then we can say, well, maybe we [00:53:00] need to reexamine the frameworks and, and look and see whether, whether it’s, whether it’s possible, I have no doubt that there will be some attempt to, for example, use universal jurisdiction in some, some states to try and hold, you know, particular individuals to account.

You know, it does, it does come back to states. States need to step up and states need to become parties to the International Convention on Mercenarism. They need to implement appropriate legislation at the, at the national level that will ensure accountability. And when states aren’t doing that, it’s, it’s a huge problem.

You know, they can’t then point to other, other countries and say, you know, you’re not doing enough if they don’t have a regulatory environment in place that would ensure access to justice for victims. 

Dean Peacock: A big thank you to Bassam Al-Ahmad and Dr Sorcha MacLeod for joining us on the show today. 

Reem Abbas: Today we learned how the [00:54:00] collapse of traditional armies in the MENA region is in part responsible for the rise of mercenary groups.

That more community based interventions could be useful in decreasing men’s involvement in armed conflict. 

And we also learned the need to have greater accountability and regulation for mercenary groups on an international level. 

Dean Peacock: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Mobilising Men for Feminist Peace podcast.

You can find all the resources and bibliography for this episode on our website and in the show notes. 

Reem Abbas: If you would like to support the work of WILPF, consider reading our publications and following our social media @WILPF. I am Reem Abbas. 

Dean Peacock: And I’m Dean Peacock, and you’ve been listening to the Mobilisng Men for Feminist Peace podcast from WILPF.

See you next time.