{"id":2062,"date":"2021-08-11T14:49:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T14:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news25.org\/?p=2062"},"modified":"2021-08-11T14:49:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T14:49:01","slug":"wagner-scale-of-russian-mercenary-mission-in-libya-exposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.news25.org\/wagner-scale-of-russian-mercenary-mission-in-libya-exposed\/","title":{"rendered":"Wagner: Scale of Russian mercenary mission in Libya exposed"},"content":{"rendered":"
A new BBC investigation has revealed the scale of operations by a shadowy Russian mercenary group in Libya’s civil war, which includes links to war crimes and the Russian military.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A Samsung tablet left by a fighter for the Wagner group exposes its key role – as well as traceable fighter codenames.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And the BBC has a “shopping list” for state-of-the-art military equipment which expert witnesses say could only have come from Russian army supplies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Russia denies any links to Wagner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The group was first identified in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since then, it has been involved in regions including Syria, Mozambique, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Wagner’s fighters appeared in Libya in April 2019 when they joined the forces of a rebel general, Khalifa Haftar, after he launched an attack on the UN-backed government in the capital, Tripoli.\u00a0The conflict ended in a ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0in October 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The group is notoriously secretive, but the BBC has managed to gain rare access to two former fighters. They revealed what type of person was joining Wagner – and its lack of any code of conduct.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There is little doubt that they kill prisoners – something one ex-fighter freely admits. “No-one wants an extra mouth to feed.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This supports other parts of the TV documentary – Haftar’s Russian Mercenaries: Inside the Wagner Group – by BBC News Arabic and BBC News Russian. Its other revelations include evidence of suspected war crimes, including the intentional killing of civilians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One Libyan villager describes how he played dead as his relatives were killed. His testimony helped the BBC team identify a suspected killer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Describing another possible war crime, a Libyan government soldier also recalls how a comrade, his friend, surrendered to Wagner fighters but was shot twice in the stomach. The soldier has not seen him since, nor three other friends taken away at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n