New terrorists arrive to Europe from Libya
The mercenaries sent by Turkey to Libya are fleeing to Europe. With this headline, Atalayar opened on 23 January to make known how some of the fighters backed by Ankara, who were sent to the North African country to fight in the ranks of the Government of National Unity (GNA), had begun to flee towards the old continent, using the Italian route. Since then, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has estimated that around 2,000 fighters have left Libya towards the community soil, among them many terrorists of jihadist nature who are part of groups such as Daesh, Al-Qaeda or their affiliates.
One of the latest cases reported this week: extremist Saif Abu Bakr, head of the Hamzat militia, who entered Libya to fight alongside the GNA, has used a boat of the migrant mafias to enter southern Europe through Italy. The boat left the port of Sabratha, an enclave recently recovered by the GNA. This was revealed by the analyst Faraj Aljarih, a testimony also collected by the expert José Luis Mansilla (@Sahel_Intel). "This is another 'goodwill ambassador' that Erdogan has sent to Europe after deploying tens of thousands in Libya. Europe will regret handing over Libya to Turkey, and I hope that Italy will not be the one to pay the price, while the Germans and the French are watching," Aljarih said on his official Twitter account.
Details of Saif Abu Bakr are unknown, beyond the fact that he is the leader of the Hamzat militia, the Syrian faction that has been fed by Ankara to support the GNA along with others like Al-Mutasim, Sultan Murad, Suqur Al-Shamal and Suleiman Shah. In total, the Eurasian nation has deployed more than 9,600 mercenaries in Libya, according to the SOHR, while about 3,300 still remain in Turkey receiving training and instructions. In addition, among those fighting in the North African country, the London-based organization has registered at least 180 minors. So far, 311 militiamen have lost their lives in the fighting, including 18 people under the age of 18.
Ahmed al-Mismari, spokesman for the rival faction in the Libyan war - the National Liberation Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar - said on Thursday that "hundreds of mercenaries and extremists paid by Ankara arrived in Europe and other neighbouring countries from Libya," according to the local newspaper Libya Akhbar.
In addition, on Friday, Syrian opposition activist and expert on Middle Eastern affairs, Bassam Al-Bunni, denounced on his social networks that "Turkey has cheated the Syrian people". "We used to think that Ankara came to support the Freedom Fighters [Bachar al-Asad's rival militias], and we discovered that their goal was none other than to recruit them to fight in Libya [...] Erdogan practices a clear political hypocrisy," he criticised.