John Lechner
Turkey’s Syrian mercenaries found themselves under-equipped for the fight ahead. “We were given old machine guns from home,” one fighter recalled, “not due to lack of higher quality weapons, but because those weapons had been sold off on the black market.” On the enemy’s side, Haftar’s LNA employed sophisticated surveillance drones—likely provided by the UAE, but also Wagner—to map targets. Back in Syria, “neither the regime nor rebels had the ability to target precisely.”
Turkish officers told the Syrian recruits they were fighting not just Haftar, but Assad’s regime—there were Syrians on the other side loyal to the regime. They weren’t wrong.
In proxy warfare, outside powers are typically willing to invest enough resources to ensure their preferred proxies won’t lose, but not enough for them to win.
In September 2019, “Basil,” a twentysomething Syrian from Syria’s Latakia region, was in Deir ez-Zor with Wagner’s ISIS Hunters unit when an order came to head to their base in Homs. “The Russians told us about [another] mission, but no one knew where exactly. We thought we were maybe going to Raqqa.” The ISIS Hunters took a bus to Hmeimim Airport, then boarded a military plane packed with men and coffins. Three hours later, they landed. The Syrians were loaded in pickups and brought to Al-Karama base where they were finally told where they were: Libya. The starting salary was $500 per month. Twenty of the ISIS Hunters immediately refused to fight. “They said it was because of the low salary, but really they were afraid of the whole situation.” More ISIS Hunters joined them in a strike, forcing a Russian commander to raise salaries to $1,000 a month: low by international standards but good money in the overwhelming poverty of Assad’s Syria.
The same twenty fighters still refused to participate. They eventually flew back to Syria. The commander of the brigade collected the mobile phones of the others. Basil’s family had no idea where he was, but that was pretty normal given “all the secret work” he did. Still, he was terrified. The men were given weapons and piled into another plane, this one heading for al-Jufra. Everyone was given a fake name. From there, they hopped onto small buses and drove twelve hours to the front line in Tripoli. The trip shouldn’t have been that long, but various “clans” put up roadblocks on the way.
Like their fellow Syrians across the front line, Basil and the ISIS Hunters were put up in civilians’ houses. The next day, they visited one of the field hospitals that had an operations center. The first floor was for injured Russians and Syrians and food supplies, provided by the UAE. The floors above were for communications. There were Sudanese mercenaries, who, annoyingly for Basil, were earning $1,500 dollars, as well as Chadians. After a few days, it was time to fight. “The Russians were advancing during the day and withdrawing at night. I don’t know why,” Basil remembered. “The real war was in the air, and the Turks controlled it.”
In May 2020, the Turkish intervention had made a serious difference. Pro-Tripoli forces pushed Haftar’s LNA out of Tripoli’s southern suburbs. Milita commander Heithem thanked the Turkish drones more than the mercenaries. “They cut off the logistical supplies for the Russians and the LNA. They ran out of ammunition, even food.” At the end of the month, Wagner’s 1,500 mercenaries, a number that did not include Syrians under their employment, made a sudden and hasty retreat from Tripoli. From what Basil had heard, there had been a truce. “The Russians learned the GNA and Turks wanted to attack Sirte. Both had oil and were more important to Wagner than Tripoli, so they made a truce, and we were given seventy-two hours to withdraw.” For now, it seems unlikely that Wagner had a direct stake in those oil fields. The bulk of Wagner’s funding in Libya likely came from the Russian military, not Haftar. It is still unclear, too, whether Wagner brokered a deal with the Turks or simply made a hasty retreat. Soon, though, fires were lit at Russian headquarters. Smoke from laptops and documents filled the air. Haftar’s campaign against the capital collapsed a few days later.
Ahmed—who had fought for the Turks and the GNA—went back to Syria with a shattered pelvis. He was paid $2,500, a quarter of the $10,000 he was owed. “When I complained, they said this is what we have for you. If you don’t like it, file a complaint.” When the fighting in Libya was at its peak, a recruiter for one of the Turkish-backed militias reported he was told to “send as many fighters as we could recruit . . . so, we started sending kids with zero military experience.” But once the battle was won, “commanders confiscated salaries,” he confirmed.
After visiting the white house where Wagner forces had allegedly stayed, Heithem and I drove a few minutes to meet Abdul Rahman. Abdul lost two brothers to the mines Wagner left behind. He showed us the car, speckled with small holes where shrapnel sliced through. He pointed to the trip wires in his garden and the booby traps behind his doors.
“Was it possible this was the LNA?” I asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” he responded. But the sophistication hinted at the Russians. “Libyans themselves wouldn’t leave these mines behind; society is not structured that way.”
In the backyard we saw an unexploded shell. Abdul covered it with a rusty bucket and put a rock on top to keep it in place. His neighbor lost two children the year before when they picked up a mine. Frequent petitions to demine Ein Zara had gone unanswered by the government in Tripoli.
We then drove past several buildings destroyed by Emirati drones and fighter jets. On the street, groups of African migrants congregated, some on break from rebuilding Ein Zara, earning money to pay for boats to Europe. They bore the brunt of injuries from unexploded ordinances.
In October 2020, representatives from Libya’s two rival camps signed a United Nations-sponsored action plan committing to the withdrawal of foreign mercenaries. A Wagner force stuck around, however, keeping some of its Syrian fighters. Basil’s unit was transferred to Sirte, to wait for an attack from the Turks and GNA that never came. They were bored almost immediately, even more so after commanders cut everyone off from hashish. Most Syrians opted to go back, but a few signed new contracts to fight in Africa. They went south to the Central African Republic.
The offensive on Tripoli was a failure for Haftar, but not for Wagner. Prigozhin’s men were paid for their services—likely through the UAE and the Russian state. While the Kremlin and Prigozhin would be happy for Haftar to take Tripoli, there was no interest in throwing all the necessary resources behind him. Russian military planners knew Haftar’s chances of taking the city were limited. In the spring of 2019, Prigozhin received a report stating the LNA lacked the capacity and motivation to seize the capital. It was more important to maintain Haftar’s dependence on the Kremlin and, therefore, Russian influence in an important country on NATO’s southern flank. In proxy warfare, outside powers are typically willing to invest enough resources to ensure their preferred proxies won’t lose, but not enough for them to win. In this sense, Russia and Turkey have made the conflict in Libya more intractable. Ironically, it is also Russia and Turkey’s intervention that produced a military stalemate and prevented the eruption of another war after 2020.
Neither at war nor at peace, the real winners in Libya are those comfortably straddling the two, feeding belligerents’ demand for men and material.
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