Monday, April 25, 2011

Who Are Gaddafi’s Mercenaries?

Suspected mercenaries sit inside a prison in Benghazi Photo: REUTERS

Libya: Col Gaddafi 'Has Spent £2.1m On Mercenaries' -- The Telegraph

Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime has spent $3.5 million (£2.1m) hiring hundreds of mercenaries from north Africa to help defeat anti-government rebels, according to senior Nato officials.

Details of a deal to recruit 450 fighters from the disputed Western Sahara region have been passed to Nato officials by a former Gaddafi loyalist who was involved in the negotiations before defecting to the rebels.

According to the defector, who has not been named, the mercenaries are being paid $10,000 each to fight for Col Gaddafi for two months. The deal with the mercenaries was arranged last month after serious anti-government protests threatened to overthrow the regime.

Read more ....

Update #1: Will Obama allow Gaddafi’s mercenaries to act with impunity? -- Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post
Update #2: Kadhafi-Polisario: the details of a transaction revealed by a British daily newspaper -- Sahara News

My Comment: If news reports of Gaddafi trying to recruit mercenaries is true, it tells me that he must feel very insecure with the Libyan military (or what is left of it) that is propping up his regime right now. In fact .... I am willing to predict that if this war of attrition continues, even having a mercenary army will not be enough to sustain him and his family as rulers of Libya.

No comments: