The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Armies

Πηγή: Business Insider

By Robert Johnson

April 23 2013

Its been a banner decade for modern military fighting. In 2010 alone there were more than 70 armed conflicts across the globe from Sangin to Ingushetia.

As different as each of them were, they all had one thing in common, at some point one side wanted more troops.

Most battles eventually come down to boots on the ground and rifles in the field. So when commanders are building their ranks it's often with professional soldiers who know how to fight, and get paid well to do it.

The idea of a mercenary may seem a bit quaint in the 21st century, but those forces make a difference and are often all that stands between a leader and his fate.


Security giant G4S is the second-largest private employer on earth

With more than 625,000 employees, this listed security giant is the second-largest private employer in the world (behind Wal-Mart). While some of its business is focused on routine bank, prison and airport security, G4S also plays an important role in crisis-zones right around the world.

In 2008, G4S swallowed up Armorgroup, whose 9,000-strong army of guards has protected about one third of all non-military supply convoys in Iraq (it's also notorious for its wild parties and for having Afghan warlords on its payroll).

But the combined group has a security presence in more than 125 countries, including some of the most dangerous parts of Africa and Latin America, where it offers government agencies and private companies heavily-armed security forces, land-mine clearance, military intelligence and training.

Unity Resources Group is active in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Asia

With more than 1,200 staff worldwide, the Australian-owned Unity Resources has been able to grow its presence in Iraq as sovereign armies withdraw. Its management consists of veterans from Australia, the U.S. and Great Britain.

The private military firm is best-known for guarding the Australian embassy in Baghdad, where, as of 2010, it had trained Chilean soldiers to man gates and machine-gun nests. Unity personnel were also responsible for two controversial car shootings in Iraq: one killed an Australian professor, another resulted in the deaths of two civilian women.

Outside Iraq, Unity has assisted with security during parliamentary elections in Lebanon and helped evacuate private oil companies from crisis zones in Bahrain. The firm also operates throughout Africa, the Americas, Central Asia and Europe.

Erinys has guarded most of Iraq's vital oil assets

Erinys has also followed U.S. State Department contracts to Iraq. Its biggest mission in recent years took 16,000 of its guards to 282 locations around the country, where they protected key oil pipelines and other energy assets.

The group also maintains a presence in Africa, where it has traditionally focused its operations. Erinys was recently awarded two contracts in the Republic of Congo, for security at major iron ore and oil and gas projects.

Asia Security Group is a powerful Afghan force linked to president Karzai

Formerly owned by Hashmat Karzai, the first cousin of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Asia Security Group is a major local force in the war-torn nation. It employs about 600 guards.

The private army, headquartered in Kabul, has been awarded millions of dollars in contracts from the U.S. military and is said to protect Coalition supply convoys traveling in Afghanistan's south. Mercenaries from Asia Security Group have also been recruited by DynCorp, a U.S.-owned contractor with a big footprint in the region.

DynCorp has battled Colombian rebels and drug-runners in Peru

DynCorp, based in Virginia, is one of eight private military firms specially chosen by the U.S. State Department to remain in Iraq as official American forces pull out.

But the huge group, which brings in about $3.4 billion in revenue every year, is also active throughout Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America, with a staff in excess of 10,000. The firm earned a trigger-happy reputation as its soldiers fought rebel groups in Columbia in the early 2000s. Its troops have also engaged in anti-drug missions in Peru and were sent to disarm fighters in Somalia, Liberia and southern Sudan.

Triple Canopy has won a security contract in Iraq worth up to $1.5 billion

Another of the eight contractors recruited to replace official U.S. forces in Iraq, Triple Canopy has an army of about 1,800 troops in the country — mostly from Uganda and Peru — on contracts worth up to $1.5 billion.

An official review of the firm's team in Iraq concluded it was a "well-trained, professional work force with significant prior experience." But the private military — whose name refers to the canopies in the jungles where its founding Army specialists received their training — also employs another 3,000 personnel globally.

Contracts in other parts of the world have taken Triple Canopy to Haiti, where it guarded the U.S. embassy, and to Israel, where agents provided personal protective services for the U.S. State Department.

Aegis Defense Services works with the UN, US, and oil companies

Aegis supplies forces for private clients, U.N. missions and the U.S. government, especially in Iraq.

But its staff, estimated to be as big as 5,000, is also spread across offices in Afghanistan and Bahrain, where the contractor offers emergency response, risk assessments, and protects private oil interests.

The private military contractor is probably best-known for a video that surfaced in 2005, which allegedly showed Aegis forces firing at Iraqi civilians.

Defion Internacional recruits thousands of fighters from developing countries

In the past, Triple Canopy has recruited heavily from the ranks of Defion Internacional, which sources and trains private military personnel from Latin America for jobs right around the world.

Headquartered in Peru, and with offices in Dubai, Iraq, Philippines and Sri Lanka, the firm contracts and trains bodyguards, drivers, static guards and logistics specialists from a number of developing countries. In some cases, these agents are paid as little as $1,000 per month, which has drawn international ire — especially for jobs linked to the U.S. State Department.

At one stage there were more than 1,000 Latin Americans guns-for-hire in the Middle East, although it is unclear how many of those fighters Defion was responsible for given that it is not required to disclose numbers.

Academi owns and runs one of the most advanced private military training facilities in the world

Formerly Blackwater, then Xe Services, Academi runs a 7,000 acre training facility deep in the North Carolina wilderness — one of the biggest and most complex private military training grounds in the world.

According to a book written on Blackwater in 2007, the facility had by then produced an army of 20,000 troops, 20 aircraft, a fleet of armored vehicles and trained war dogs. Most of those resources were shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan on U.S. government contracts.

Academi probably scaled back after a number of wrongful shootings and other controversies angered the Iraq government and jeopardized important contracts.

Outside the Middle East, Academi was recruited to protect the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It has also protected Japan's missile defence systems and assisted with the war on drugs around the world.

BONUS: Starting out as a mercenary?

Take a course at Academi's premier training facility in North Carolina.

The firm offers custom courses for allied security forces and corporates, such as live-fire driving instruction, counter-terrorism training — including dealing with weapons of mass destruction — and executive risk assessment.

You can also get equipped at the Academi web store, which stocks everything from protective sunglasses to sniper mission logs — even branded gifts.

The British woman and Gaddafi’s doomed getaway

Πηγή: PressDisplay
By Kim Sengupta

Nov 3 2011

(Thanks to Herman for the following correction: "On 30 October City Press published a report entitled “SA Mercenaries were misled”. The report referred to allegations that the London based Hart Security had contracted South African mercenaries through an intermediary to render certain services in Libya. The reference to Hart Security in the report was published in error. City Press regrets the error and retracts the allegation.")

Security expert casts light on how a mercenary escort may have been recruited for the tyrant’s final flight

South African mercenaries said to have been involved in an operation to save Muammar Gaddafi and his family from revolutionary forces at the end of the civil war in Libya may have been sent by a multinational oil company.

A woman of British and Kenyan extraction involved in the security field has disclosed that she was asked to recruit a private force for work in Libya by an oil company as the conflict reached its violent climax,

has learnt. Some South African “soldiers of fortune” were said to have been with Colonel Gaddafi when he was captured, tortured and killed by rebel forces as he tried to flee the besieged city of Sirte. Others from the contingent are believed to be guarding the dictator’s son, Saif al-islam, currently on the run in the border region of Chad, Niger and Algeria.

The name of Sarah Penfold, who is based in Nairobi, and describes herself as an “executive protection and security specialist”, has repeatedly come up in accounts of the private forces working in Libya. She has denied that she had any part in dealing with the Gaddafi family.

She told an Two men guarding Gaddafi are said to have been killed acquaintance in South Africa: “I was asked by a friend to get some guys together to do PSD [private security detail] and training in Libya for a well known oil company to protect their assets and personnel. I sent an email round asking guys to go for an interview and forward it to others. That’s all.”

However, according to sources, a group of these security contractors had, unknown toms Penfold, taken part in the Gaddafi mission. Some are reported to have been injured and at least two killed when the dictator’s convoy was ambushed by Nato air strikes and rebel attacks on the ground.

Ms Penfold suggested that another security group, running a parallel operation in Libya, may have been the ones who suffered the casualties. She continued: “Then I find out from some intel friends that your lovely head of police with his ANC links got a load of police guys together… These, I presume, were the guys who got hit.”

There is no evidence to suggest that the current head of the police force in South Africa is linked in any way to private security operations in Libya. However, the name of a former senior police officer has surfaced in connection with the mission. He has denied any involvement.

Although Ms Penfold is insistent that she has done nothing wrong over recruitment for Libya, her entry in a social networking site has now been removed. Her profile read: “Trained in advanced and tactical high-speed driving. Medically trained to first aid level 2 and 3, with a focus on trauma injuries.”

Some of the South Africans involved in Libya are believed to be veterans of a failed attempt to overthrow the dictator of Equatorial Guineain the “Wonga Coup”, led by former SAS officer Simon Mann 11 years ago.

Cruise Steyl, a former business partner of Sir Mark Thatcher and, with him, involved in the coup plot, was contacted two days after Gaddafi’s death and asked whether he would be prepared to help evacuate a group of stranded South African mercenaries from Libya.

Mr Steyl, an experienced pilot, said: “The call came on Saturday evening and I was told just how urgent the whole situation was and a fair amount of money was on offer. But what happened in Equatorial Guinea was a while ago, I have my own business now and I don’t want that to get involved in that kind of activity.”

Backgound articles

Gaddafi’s SA soldiers by The New Age 

A team of South African mercenaries helped Muammar Gaddafi’s family out of the war zone of Tripoli, Libya’s capital, to hide out in Algeria, prior to the Libyan despot’s killing in Sirte last week.

The team returned to South Africa within a week of the successful clandestine operation. Not so lucky was a second team, which went to support Gaddafi’s escape to Niger, but got caught in the fire fight between the dictator’s henchmen and Nato.

The second team was allegedly cornered by Libyan freedom fighters, which led to one South African’s death and numerous casualties among the rest of the mercenaries.

The first team of 24 men launched the audacious covert operation at the beginning of September to spirit Gaddafi’s wife and three surviving children away to safety in Algeria. A week later the team arrived safely back in South Africa.

“The first team was a mixed bag of former South African policemen and soldiers,” sources told The New Age. But the second team of 19 former South African policemen were not so lucky.

They were part of the security for Gaddafi’s convoy to neighbouring Niger when they were attacked by Nato forces and got pinned down in fierce fighting outside Sirte last week. The team has since gone to ground after the death of Gaddafi – who called himself Brother Leader.

“The 19 missing in Libya are all ex-police officers,” said The New Age’s intelligence source on Monday.

Describing last week’s involvement of South African mercenaries in efforts to extract the former Libyan dictator as “ill-fated from the outset”, the source said the second team might have been under the impression that the extraction of Gaddafi had been sanctioned by the UN.

Two separate teams of South African mercenaries were recruited in August on behalf of Gaddafi as part of the elaborate plan to protect and extract the despot and his family to safety.

According to sources, the interviews for the two teams were conducted in Sandton and Cape Town by an international recruitment company, but without either’s knowledge of the other’s existence. The South Africans mercenaries were apparently paid $15000 (R125000) each.

Interviews for the extraction operations were conducted on August 17 at the Balalaika Hotel in Sandton by Sarah Penfold, who operates from Kenya for a British mercenary outfit. The New Age has seen copies of an email sent to a former SA Special Forces operative, inviting him for an interview. The first mercenary group left South Africa two days after the interviews, flying from OR Tambo Airport to Dubai.

From there they flew to Tunisia, which shares borders with Algeria and Libya, where they were issued with firearms. They then travelled by road into Libya. Gaddafi’s wife, Safiya, his daughter, Aisha, and his sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, accompanied by their children, were escorted to Algeria.

Former police commissioner George Fivaz told The New Age yesterday that his security firm, Fivaz and Associates, was contacted from London at the weekend by people urgently looking for an air ambulance to evacuate about 50 wounded and badly burned war victims from Libya.

Fivaz said his firm did not provide this type of service and he believed there was, in any case, no such large air ambulance available in South Africa.

Mark Young, spokesperson of Criticare in London, said the company had been contracted for casavac operations in Libya but he had no knowledge of any South Africans needing evacuation.

He said Criticare was looking for a big air ambulance and had been told he might find one in South Africa. “We contacted Saafair in but we were told their plane had been contracted to the UN,” Young said.

There was an air ambulance with the capacity of 10 to 20 patients available in Austria, but there were problems with the insurance because it had to fly into war zones.

“We have to evacuate five to 10 wounded and badly burned victims a day for the next two months from Libya as part of our contract,” Young said. The victims included Libyans, Nato forces and other casualties from around the world, he said.

SA mercenaries 'were misled by news24

Tripoli - Colonel Muammar Gaddafi probably really thought he was going to “live in a tent in the Karoo”, but South African mercenaries actually helped him from the frying pan into the fire.

Speaking to one of the South African operators who was at Gaddafi’s side and a senior source in the intelligence world, City Press discovered the mercenaries were probably also misled into thinking they were helping Gaddafi.

Their involvement was really only part of a larger plan to capture Gaddafi, it now appears.

A few of them are still in Libya after they were approached by a security company in August to assist in moving Gaddafi out of his hometown of Sirte and “bring him to South Africa”.

The recruiting was done by Sarah Penfold, a well-known name in the industry based in Kenya, who apparently acted on behalf of a company in London.

South Africa’s State Security Agency is aware of her visit to Johannesburg on August 17, and she is being investigated.

Demands

Gaddafi himself apparently requested assistance from the private security industry.

Subsequently, negotiations were held in which he allegedly made demands concerning his planned stay in South Africa.

One of the operators, Danie Odendaal, told City Press that in his correspondence Gaddafi insisted he be accommodated in a tent in a hot region – preferably desert-like.

He said they still speculated that the only suitable place in South Africa would be the Karoo.

After being issued with false passports, three groups of South Africans flew to Dubai and Cairo, from where they hurriedly flew to Libya to assist Gaddafi.

But things turned into a “disgusting, disgusting orgy” when Nato forces fired on Gaddafi’s convoy before transitional government soldiers captured and executed him.

Abortive project

Afterwards, the details and the incredible “coincidence” of the abortive project started unfolding.

City Press has discovered there was no request to the South African authorities to bring Gaddafi, a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, here.

It would never have been allowed, a reliable government source said.

Intelligence sources believe there were agents among the mercenaries, or in some of the security companies, who were spying for the transitional government and reporting on the mercenaries’ movements.

Nato launched its attack on Gaddafi with deadly precision, and Odendaal believes someone “sold them out”.

There is another group of South Africans in Libya, but City Press has learned they are not under arrest. They come and go as they like, and some live in hotels.

No one wants to comment

Former police commissioner George Fivaz said he received a call from a man in London last week who wanted to hire a 50-seat air ambulance to fetch people in Libya. Fivaz told him he couldn’t help him.

City Press telephoned Hart Security in London for comment about allegations they had contracted the South Africans through Penfold.

Initially, an employee immediately ended the call. Another employee, who only identified himself as “Harry”, at first said they didn’t have any operations in Libya.

Later he said “no one will comment about this”.

Despite many telephone calls, Penfold couldn’t be reached for comment.

The South African government doesn’t want to become involved, and it’s not clear how the mercenaries will be taken out of Libya.

State Security Agency spokesperson Brian Dube said they didn’t wish to comment at this stage.

Libya conflict: Black African migrants caught in backlash

There are probably fewer mercenaries than the anti-Gaddafi fighters suspect

Πηγή: BBC
By Ian Pannell

Sep. 18 2011

A BBC investigation has found allegations of abuse against African migrant workers in Libya by fighters allied to the new interim authorities.

Hundreds of men have been imprisoned, accused of being mercenaries for Col Muammar Gaddafi, and there are claims that homes have been ransacked and looted, and women and girls have been beaten and raped.

It was a visit the Nigerian family had been dreading.

They had been hiding in their tiny slum home in a Tripoli suburb since Col Gaddafi had been swept from power, fearing the knock at the door. Earlier this month 20 rebel fighters came, demanding to be let in, shouting "murtazaka".

It is the word every black African in Libya knows too well. Murtazaka is Arabic for "mercenary", the armed men allegedly employed by the former regime to carry out some of the worst excesses of the conflict.

The fighters forced their way into the Nigerian family's home. They beat the couple living there. They stole their possessions and money, abducted the father of the house and turned on his 16-year-old daughter. She told us what happened:

"A group of armed men came to our house. They started knocking, they came in saying 'murtazaka'. They locked my mother inside a toilet. Six of them raped me. They took our belongings and money. My father tried to stop them but they hit him and carried him away."

That was nearly three weeks ago and she has not seen or heard of her father since.

Violent campaign


This is the African continent, I am an African, this is my land - is it because of my colour, because I am a black man?”Alleged victim

When rebel fighters moved into Tripoli last month, an immediate hunt began for former regime loyalists and African mercenaries accused of working for Col Gaddafi.

Evidence has emerged in a series of interviews that suggests that some engaged in a violent campaign of abuse and intimidation against the black immigrant community in Tripoli.

Hundreds of men have been arrested with little or no evidence, homes have been pillaged and people beaten up. Most victims are too afraid to be identified but they contacted the BBC to air their grievances.

One man showed us around another home that had been ransacked. A thick iron bar in the corner of the dark room had been used to beat the men and the women there as the rebels made off with their money and few possessions.

He told us he was glad when Col Gaddafi was overthrown, expecting a better life. Instead he and hundreds of others black Africans have become victims, a soft target.

"This is the African continent, I am an African, this is my land. Is it because of my colour, because I am a black man? We don't have a voice. Who would you to turn to?"

On the outskirts of the city we were invited to film a truck-load of men from Niger who had just been picked up. They too were accused of being mercenaries while being made to chant anti-Gaddafi slogans by leering fighters before being put to work hauling boxes of documents and weapons found in the woods.

This man said 20 men raided his house

Casual manual labour

There are no figures for how many foreign mercenaries Col Gaddafi employed.

It is almost certainly far fewer than the rebel fighters suspected. Most black Africans in Libya have been living here for years doing casual manual labour.

But just as it was easier to suspect foreigners (rather than Libyans) of doing the Colonel's bidding throughout the course of battles for cities like Benghazi and Misrata, so it is now easier to round up those who can be easily distinguished by the colour of their skin.

The transitional council has told its fighters to avoid revenge attacks and there has been far less violence than many had feared. But the city's jails are still full of men detained with little or no evidence, with no access to lawyers or even their families. One woman showed us the black eye she received for arguing with the fighters as they dragged her husband away:

"There has been no communication. I am scared of everything happening in this country. I am now begging them to just leave my husband, he's innocent, he's very quiet, he couldn't even fight me," she said.

The leadership of the National Transitional Council has repeatedly called for restraint from its fighters, urging them to avoid revenge attacks. But it is clear that some appear to have ignored this.

Libya's new leaders will have to distinguish themselves in many ways, not least how they guarantee the freedom, dignity and justice that so many have fought and died for.

But if it is to mean anything it must apply to all.

Libya: Rebels 'execute 85 mercenaries, including 12 Serbs'

Πηγή: Adnkronos
Sep. 13 2011

Belgrade, 13 Sept. (AKI) - Libyan rebels who control most of the country after defeating Muammar Gaddafi's military, have executed 85 foreign mercenaries, including 12 Serbs, in the city of Misrata alone, Serbian media reported on Tuesday.

Belgrade daily Press said the executions took place in the state insurance building in Misrata after it was taken by the forces loyal to rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC). Among the killed mercenaries, who fought on Gaddafi’s side, were also nine Croats, 11 Ukrainians and ten Colombians, the paper said.

The report was also confirmed by Zagreb daily Vecernji list whose correspondent in Misrata, Hasan Hajdar Dijab, said many mercenaries had been killed in fighting, but those arrested were shot in the head.

It quoted a rebel commander in Misrata Abdelaziz Madini as saying “those killed weren’t soldiers but executioners who came here to kill for money”. He said other mercenaries who surrender would have a fair trial.

Balkans military analysts said they were not surprised by the report, because hundreds of veterans of 1990s Balkans war have sought engagement abroad after the end of the Balkan wars in 1995 and fought for money in various African and Asian countries.

In a related development, the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) said in its latest report that both sides in the Libyan conflict committed crimes, especially Gaddafi’s forces, but “crimes committed by rebels weren’t negligible either”, it added.

Amnesty International has called on Libya's National Transitional Council to take steps to prevent human rights abuses by anti-Gaddafi forces.