Originally published 2020-11-12.
In November 2020, as the war over Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire, Armenian authorities released a video of a captured Syrian man who said he had been recruited to fight for Azerbaijan for a monthly wage, with a cash bonus for every Armenian killed. In May 2021 he and a second Syrian prisoner were sentenced to life in prison in Armenia. Turkey and Azerbaijan denied using foreign mercenaries, and Baku called the confessions a fraud. Here is what the prisoner said, what independent evidence showed and how to weigh a wartime confession.
A still from the confession video released by Armenian authorities in November 2020. The prisoner was later identified in court as Yusef al-Haji.
The war in brief
Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan's internationally recognised borders that was, for three decades, run by its ethnic Armenian majority with Armenia's backing. On 27 September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a large offensive, supported politically and militarily by Turkey, including with Turkish-made Bayraktar drones.
The fighting lasted 44 days. A ceasefire signed by Azerbaijan's Ilham Aliyev, Armenia's Nikol Pashinyan and Russia's Vladimir Putin took effect on 10 November. Azerbaijan kept the territory it had captured, including the historic town of Shusha, and Armenia agreed to hand back the surrounding districts. Just under 2,000 Russian peacekeepers deployed along the front line and the Lachin corridor, the road linking the region to Armenia. Official figures put military deaths at nearly 3,900 on the Armenian side and about 2,900 on the Azerbaijani side.
What the captured Syrian said
The man, presented in the original reports as "El Haji", was reportedly captured by Karabakh Armenian forces on 1 November 2020. In his filmed testimony he described himself as a poor, illiterate man from Syria who had fought in that country's civil war. His account, as published in translation, ran roughly as follows:
- The offer: recruiters promised him
a monthly salary of $2,000
and told him he would only take part in military exercises. His father and wife opposed the trip, but he went when neighbours signed up. - The journey: about 500 men aged 20 to 40 were recruited in one go, bussed to the Turkish border without document checks, flown from a Turkish airport to Azerbaijan, and issued uniforms and weapons by Azerbaijani and Turkish soldiers.
- The front: on 18 October they were sent to the Karabakh front, told to take Armenian villages and promised $100 for every Armenian they beheaded. He said they were given knives and pills to suppress fear, which he refused to take.
- Capture: his unit came under fire, about 15 men were killed, and he was left wounded for five days before surrendering. He said the Armenians gave him food and water.
He ended with a warning to other poor Syrians: It's better to stay poor
than to come and fight against Armenians.
How much of this is corroborated?
A confession recorded by one side during a war cannot be taken at face value. The prisoner was in Armenian custody, spoke through translation and had every reason to say what his captors wanted to hear. Some details, such as the beheading bounty, have not been independently confirmed.
The broader claim, that Syrian fighters were sent to Azerbaijan, is much better supported:
- Reporting from Syria: Western media interviewed members of Islamist rebel groups in Turkish-controlled northern Syria in late September and October 2020 who said they were being deployed to Azerbaijan in coordination with the Turkish government, reportedly for monthly pay well above what they could earn at home.
- Named units: the allegations centred on the Hamza Division, a faction of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army that had earlier fought for Turkish interests in Syria and Libya and had been accused by rights groups of abuses.
- Casualty counts: the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented at least 541 Syrian fighters killed in the conflict, including a Hamza Division commander.
- Governments: French President Emmanuel Macron publicly accused Turkey of sending jihadist fighters from Syria, and Russia voiced concern about "terrorists and mercenaries" arriving from Syria and Libya.
Military analysts such as Michael Kofman have said the Syrians appear to have been used as expendable first-wave assault troops, which would fit the prisoner's description of heavy losses in his unit. Turkey and Azerbaijan have consistently denied that any foreign fighters served in Azerbaijan's forces.
The trial in Armenia
The two captured Syrians, Muhrab al-Shkheri and Yusef al-Haji, were handed over by Karabakh's forces to Armenia for prosecution. On 4 May 2021, a court in Kapan, in southern Armenia, sentenced both to life imprisonment on charges including terrorism, after a trial that reportedly lasted only a few hours.
Prosecutors said the men had trained at a camp in northern Syria from June to September 2020, travelled to Azerbaijan through Turkey and were recruited by pro-Turkish militant groups to terrorise civilians. They told the court the men had been offered a fixed wage of $2,000 plus $100 for every Armenian killed. Both defendants appear to have pleaded guilty. Under international humanitarian law, mercenaries are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status, so captured foreign fighters can be prosecuted for taking part in the fighting itself.
Anger in Yerevan after the ceasefire
For many Armenians, the ceasefire felt like a capitulation. On the night it was announced, angry crowds stormed government buildings in Yerevan, including parliament, and the speaker of the National Assembly, Ararat Mirzoyan, was beaten. Protesters called Pashinyan a traitor and feared that Armenians remaining in Karabakh would be left defenceless. The foreign and defence ministers resigned in the following weeks, and Pashinyan called early elections, which his party won in June 2021.
What followed
Those fears proved well founded. In December 2022, Azerbaijani-backed activists began blocking the Lachin corridor, cutting Karabakh off from Armenia for months. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive that brought the whole region under its control. Within days, more than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, virtually the entire population, fled to Armenia, and the self-declared republic announced its own dissolution.
The story of the Syrian prisoners is now a small part of that larger history. It remains significant because it is one of the few cases where alleged foreign fighters were tried in court, and because it showed how poor men from a broken country were drawn into someone else's war for a wage.
Sources: Azatutyun (RFE/RL), 4 May 2021: 'Syrian Mercenaries' Sentenced To Life In Prison; Wikipedia: Second Nagorno-Karabakh War; Greek City Times, 6 November 2020 (translation of the confession).
COMMENTS