SOHR: More Bodies of Jihadist Mercenaries Arrives in Syria

Turkish Intelligence Struggling to Recruit New Fighters to Send to Azerbaijan

Reliable sources have informed the Syrian Observatory that more bodies of Ankara-backed mercenaries, who have been killed in the “Nagorno-Karabakh” battles, arrived in Syrian territory with a batch of fighters who have returned from Azerbaijan. The death toll of those factions has risen, since the Turkish government sent them to frontlines, to at least 119 dead, including 78 fighters whose bodies were brought to Syria while the rest of bodies remained in Azerbaijan.

Observatory sources added that the Turkish efforts to recruit fighters and send them to Azerbaijan are still underway. The Turkish intelligence seeks to recruit fighters providing financial intensives and taking advantage of the factions’ loyalty to Turkey. However, its attempts to recruit fighters and send them to Azerbaijan are no longer an easy task, unlike the case of Libya, as many refuse to go to Azerbaijan based on many factors, perhaps the most prominent of which is the sectarian factor.

On the other hand, reliable sources had informed SOHR that the Turkish government is preparing over 400 fighters of “Sultan Murad”, “Al-Hamzat Division” and other factions in order to transport to Azerbaijan in the next hours and days. It is worth noting that the number of Syrian fighters in Azerbaijan has risen to nearly 1,450, after the Turkish government had sent a batch of some 250 fighters last week.

A few days ago, SOHR sources said that Turkish security companies and Turkish intelligence continue to transfer and train large numbers of fighters of Turkish-backed factions to join the fighting in Azerbaijan. Most of those fighters are Syrians of Turkmen descent.