Shorash Darwish
In a televised speech, Muammar Gaddafi was furious about Turkey's interference in his country. The Libyan Colonel pointed out that "Turkey ceded us to Italy in exchange for an island in the Aegean Sea. In fact, there were twelve islands (Dodecanese Islands), which Italy ceded in exchange for the Ottoman Empire's ceding of Libya, the states of Tripoli and Benghazi. In this case Libya was the last Ottoman property in North Africa.
Keeping Turkish control in Libya was a disastrous adventure, a mixture of ambition and experimentation that pushed the federalists into an unequal war declared by Italy on September 29, 1911. It led to a crushing defeat that resulted in abandoning Libya officers' ambition to be promoted and achieve personal gains, and led to the popularity of Officer Ismail Anwar, who later became Anwar Pasha, one of the three federalists next to Talat and Jamal, who ruled Turkey and led it to bloody adventures. It also boosted the popularity of the assistant officer Mustafa Kemal, who was responsible for protecting Darnah, so Libya was the ideal laboratory for federalists to build networks of cooperation between officers. From within the group that headed to Libya, a secret organization was formed that later suppressed the enemies of the federalists and promoted their agendas among Muslims.
With regard to experimentation, federal officers resorted to a guerrilla style war which they followed unsuccessfully in Macedonia and the Balkans, where Anwar persuaded the Central Committee of the Union and Promotion Party of the effectiveness of fighting guerrilla war to confront the Italian forces. Arab tribes were the strength of the guerrilla war, especially the Senussian Zawiya people in Barqa. Author Andrew Mango conveyed to us the aspiration of Anwar, who was married to the Sultan's niece, who considered himself the Prince of the Arabs and exaggerated his personal ambition by issuing a local currency in Barqa bearing his signature, at a time when Mustafa Kamal was camped out near Darnah in Ain al-Mansour, from which he issued a local newspaper called al-Jihad.
Despite the attempts of the young officers, things turned to abandoning Libya, while the cessation agreement was known as the Lausanne Treaty of 1912. The tribes were left to their destiny to confront the Italians, despite Anwar's objections in a letter to Istanbul that highlighted the "bad reputation" that this abandonment would produce, despite the contempt that the Turkish officers had for their Arab allies. According to a message sent by Mustafa Kamal to a friend of Bouzouq, the fate of the Libyans was not in the Ottomans' consideration, which caused a curse that Colonel al-Gaddafi reminded us of: "Arabs are Arabs, Turks are Turks", in a reminder of the falsehood of propaganda that focuses on Muslim unity.
Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Turkey has been involved in the Libyan Civil War in support of the al-Sarraj government backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The support wasn’t based on religious similarities, as indicated by Turkey's expansionist policies. Its policies reflect a satisfactory tendency to retrieve the last Ottoman properties and satisfy the financial networks associated with the ruling party that are pushing for looting of areas affected by the Arab Spring, with the complicity of local agents or forces enticed by them.
Turkey's standing alongside the al-Sarraj government lacks a human reservoir that helps it with longevity, because the support of radical Salafist and Islamic groups is no longer sufficient, and the only available option is to rely on Syrian mercenaries which are less expensive and more abundant.
The engagement in the Libyan war removed the cover from the "Syrian National Army" in terms of classifying its militia operating in Libya as mercenaries. The entire National Army militia was described as mercenaries, operating according to the instructions and will of the Turkish state; Although military leaders of the Turkish-backed armed opposition denied the fact that fighters were sent to Tripoli via Turkey, later, during the televised speeches to the masses, Turkish President Erdogan disclosed his dependence on "non-Turks" in his Libyan war, which of course means Syrian mercenaries.
A report prepared by the Syrians Center for Truth and Justice entitled "Turkey's Recruitment of Syrian Mercenaries to Fight in Libya: Legal Procedures and Consequences", which consisted of 55 pages with photos and testimonies, explains beyond any reasonable doubt and with irrefutable evidence the size of the involvement of Syrian mercenaries, and officers as consultants, alongside the Government of National Accord in the ongoing war.
Likewise, the attempt to establish a legal classification for Syrian militants clashes with the truth of the provisions of international law that describe the presence of such fighters as mercenaries and therefore do not apply against them the standards of combatants in situations of armed conflict.
In addition, most of these mercenaries are employed by intermediaries such as "Sadat" and "Sons of the Nation" companies, with salaries ranging between $2,000 and $3,000, according to experience, and insurance of $50,000 in the event of their deaths. This is in addition to the granting of Turkish citizenship to first-degree relatives. Perhaps reducing the pensions of militia members in northern Syria comes as a sign of pressure fighters in order to lure them with the financial returns that they may earn in Libya.
With the first mercenaries sent to Libya, a group of Syrian opponents denounced and rejected the Syrian involvement in the ongoing conflict there, but this voice dissipated and did not repeat the condemnation, perhaps because the Turkish interests require their silence and obedience to reality, where there is no influence or opinion for the opponents in contravention of the Turkish will, nor is there any guardianship of opposition gunmen.
The forces of Field Marshal Haftar (head of the Libyan National Army) arrested a number of Syrian mercenaries, and because in the context of talking about cheap lives, Haftar's leadership found it more beneficial to hand them over to the Syrian government, as it is pointless for them to stay in Benghazi prisons where there is no hope of replacing them with prisoners. Turkey will not demand them in any case. Returning them to the Syrian regime means that they will meet with a dark fate, and thus Haftar's forces will clean their hands of potential responsibility. In this sense, the mercenaries go on a single path, which is fighting to the death where there is no hope of quitting.
More than 100 years ago, facts proved that Turkey's capabilities do not live up to its ambitions. The current reality also confirms this paradox, while the aspiration of the Turkish President and his officers and the circles of money close to him is to seize a victory from among the pile of defeats that the expansion project endured. More than 100 years ago, Ottoman politicians and military soldiers denounced the pattern of guerrilla warfare and reliance on tribes as a gateway to the collapse of the state. Now, what will Turkey gain from a guerrilla war in Libya based on Syrian extremist groups and mercenaries?
In a letter written by Mustafa Kemal to his friend Saleh Bouzuq, in which he described the decision to defend Cyrenaica as a “reckless and useless decision”, many will repeat Mustafa Kemal's statement about Turkey's recent war, while mercenaries will carry the shame of their work as they go to their deaths.