Arab affairs expert Sargis Grigoryan wrote on his Facebook page, “We have mostly come across posts from Arab social media users that generally confirm the following:
- The mercenaries mostly came from the Idlib and Aleppo Governorates.
- These mercenaries came from poor families. Their salaries for fighting in Syria was approximately the equivalent of 200 Turkish lira (they’ve even said that they weren’t even paid that over the past few months so that the Syrians would be forced to leave and go to Libya or Azerbaijan to receive higher salaries.
- They were promised a salary of $1,500 monthly in Azerbaijan, which they were not given, or they were only given a small portion of it.
- The Turks, through organizations operating under their auspices (the Free Syrian Army, Al-Hamza, etc.) gathered these mercenaries and told them that their work in Azerbaijan would consist of defending Turkish (Azerbaijani) military targets and borders (remember, they were even given the uniforms worn by the border guards in Azerbaijan).
- Many dead Syrian mercenaries in Azerbaijan were secretly transferred from the Turkish city of Kilis to Syria overnight. They were transported during the night of October 3rd as well as last night, and photographs were not allowed.
- There was also a ban on filming for the militants already in Azerbaijan who were fighting against our forces. They even punished someone for that (I believe they were only allowed to film military operations so that the Azerbaijanis would have proof).”
