Tag Archives: erik Prince

A Look at Contract Foreign Soldiers Among Gulf States

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A number of stories have recently surfaced on how the UAE is coercing Sudanese recruits to fight as mercenaries in Yemen.

This appears to be part of a wider practice for heavy reliance on foreign contract soldiers in the region. In this post, Zoltan Barany provides an insightful summary of the scale of this practice. I must admit I was surprised by some of the stats:

In 2009, 64 percent of the staff at Bahrain’s National Security Agency were non-Bahrainis. Abdulhadi Khalaf, the eminent Bahraini sociologist in exile, claims that “the rank and file in the Bahraini military, police, and security forces consist almost entirelyof foreign recruits,” but he does not name his source. Pakistani personnel make up 18 percent of the Bahraini air force, and altogether 10,000 Pakistani nationals are employed by Bahrain’s coercive apparatus. Problems of conduct among Pakistanis serving in the Bahrain Defense Force are not unknown: in March 2013, for instance, 180 were sacked and deported for violating disciplinary norms.

In Kuwait the number is anywhere between 25-80% of the regular armed forces. In Qatar contract soldiers add up to about 85%. 70% of enlisted men in the UAE are either from Oman or Yemen.

There’s also this angle to the story:

The UAE has employed U.S. companies such as Reflex Responses (founded and operated by Erik Prince, of Blackwater notoriety), which received a $529 million contract to beef up the Emirati military. The forces fighting for the UAE in Yemen include Chadian, Chilean, Colombian, Libyan, Panamanian, Nigerien (from Niger), Somali, Salvadoran, Sudanese, and Ugandan contract soldiers, among others.

Why are Middle Eastern rulers wary of citizen soldiers? You guessed right:

Contract soldiers and foreign advisers play an indispensable role in Gulf armed forces. They have given few headaches to the rulers of the Gulf states—although they have not been problem free, as the Pakistani contingent in Bahrain has demonstrated—and have made essential contributions to their militaries. For civil-military relations in GCC states, reliance on contract soldiers has been generally advantageous, fostering the buildup and professionalization of local armies, allowing the military leadership to shift tasks to contractors that no citizens would want to perform, and recruiting foreigners to complement the fighting forces in Yemen. The recently introduced conscription in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE is only marginally germane to the practice of hiring foreign contract soldiers: this policy was implemented primarily for socioeconomic and political, not military, reasons.

In which Erik Prince, of Blackwater infamy, attempts to build a private airforce

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All of this reads like fiction. Like really good fiction. Except it is probably closer to the truth than not.

Here is a summary. Erik Prince, he of the Blackwater fame, basically allegedly tried to retool crop dusters into light armored fighter planes and then sell them to African governments — with at least one delivery to South Sudan. Prince currently runs Frontier Services Group, a Nairobi-based company (complete with a CSR operation in Kibera) that is registered in Bermuda and listed in Hong Kong. According to its website, the company provides services in aviation, trucking, warehousing, and maritime.

Here’s part of the fascinating story in The Intercept:

The story of how Prince secretly plotted to transform the two aircraft for his arsenal of mercenary services is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people who have worked with Prince over the years, including current and former business partners, as well as internal documents, memos, and emails. Over a two-year period, Prince exploited front companies and cutouts, hidden corporate ownership, a meeting with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout’s weapons supplier, and at least one civil war in an effort to manufacture and ultimately sell his customized armed counterinsurgency aircraft. If he succeeded, Prince would possess two prototypes that would lay the foundation for a low-cost, high-powered air force capable of generating healthy profits while fulfilling his dream of privatized warfare.

And all this was possible, despite obvious legal questions, because everyone involved knew they could get away with it.

In Europe, it is very illegal. You are breaking a lot of laws.” He recalled one of Prince’s deputies saying that the aircraft would be used for surveillance operations in Africa and “no one there cares about certifications.”

FSG entered the Kenyan logistics market by acquiring two aviation companies, Kijipwa Aviation and Phoenix Aviation. It has since also bought a logistics firm based in the DRC (Cheetah Logistics SARL) and plans to expand further in the region. FSG’s goal in entering Kenya was to provide “passenger and freight services to multinational oil and mining companies transporting staff to remote areas such as Lokichar and Lokichoggio and other locations in East Africa.”

I really hope that the regulators in the different jurisdictions where FSG operates know what they are doing.

In response to The Intercept‘s story, FSG issued this statement.

Blackwater founder linked to Somalia

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The embattled Somali transitional government is reported to be soliciting for help from a security firm that is a child of South Africa’s infamous executive outcomes and their American partner Blackwater. Executive outcomes has a checkered past, including involvement in coups and suppression of insurgencies in the more unstable parts of Africa. Blackwater came to the limelight following its casual treatment of civilian life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The transitional federal government (TGF) of Somalia should be advised that mercenaries do not make a nation. There is nothing that will stop Saracen and their backers from turning on the same government if their incentive alignment changes. The last thing the Somalis need is the creation of a mamluk culture on top of the chaos that already exists.

My position on Somalia remains that those with power – guns and the majority of the people’s (revealed) hearts and minds – should be allowed to govern, regardless of their ideological leanings. Once they’ve tasted State House and a state visit in Vienna they can then be bought off and made part of the international community. It won’t be the first time that the international community has condoned a fundamentalist regime for the sake of short-term stability. Right now the primary need in Somalia is Hobbe’s Leviathan. Period.

The TGF was a dead on arrival delivery that continues to stifle Somalia’s chances of emerging from collapse.