SADAT - The Turkish Fist on Geopolitical Projection

Erdogan’s Shadow Army: The Influence of “Sadat,” Turkey’s Private Defense Group

https://jiss.org.il/en/spyer-erdogans-shadow-army-influence-sadat-turkeys-private-defense-group/

“Sadat” is heavily involved in Ankara’s training of Syrian Sunni rebels for the fight against Assad.

The Private Miliary Training and Contracting Company SADAT, in Turkey, is a company which trains personel to conflicts, in Private Security and Private Military Operations, tacticaly and in operational scenarios, with a large range of conflicts, involving the fragmentation of armies in artillhery, infantry and air force.

The fragmentation of the Middle East after the Iraq war made the Sunni regime lose forces to ISIS and the success of that combined the political strategy combined with military electricity with the banner of the new strategies of war, that remained from Blackwater Operations, made a great banner with the single muscular structure, with strategy and operations very linked.

http://www.sadat.com.tr

Examples abound.

According to the Jerusalem Institute of Strategic Studies:

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is today the foremost practitioner of political and revolutionary warfare in the region. Its skills in this regard are the primary reason for the situation in which Iran today controls Lebanon and has a dominant hand in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Turkey is the latest country to enter this crucial, if shadowy, field.

The SADAT Defense Consultancy, founded in 2012 by former Brig- Gen. Adnan Tanriverdi, is Ankara’s instrument in this area. Its activities are testimony both to the changing nature of the Turkish state, and to the process by which power and influence are currently built and held in the Middle East.

To understand the role that SADAT is set to play, let’s first take a look at the advantages that similar structures afford the states that utilize them.

The IRGC, unlike the Iranian conventional armed forces, or “Artesh,” is commanded by people absolutely loyal not to the state, but to the governing regime and its goals.

These are “political soldiers,” notably available for mobilization both in defense of the regime at home, as well as in the furtherance of its goals abroad.

The proxy party-militia structures which the IRGC excels at creating and controlling in turn have the advantage of informality, and deniability, when compared with conventional forces. They permit Tehran to support and engage in paramilitary and terrorist activity globally – attacks on Jewish civilians in Burgas and Buenos Aires, assassination of Kurdish politicians in Vienna and Berlin, etc. – while continuing to take its place in the halls of diplomacy and trade as a supposedly conventional member of the international community.

The IRGC remains the exemplar for this type of warfare. Other countries have been slower to develop structures able to perform a similar function. But the gaps are closing.

The capability of operation combining public military forces and private military forces, demands a high capability of interrelaction of systems, and the capability of the public decisions not interefere in the private sector, except for the nuances of the contract.

Russia in expressing the operation with the Wagner Group, a long range active group of mercenaries with proxy conflicts in between the rebels, at the irregular scenarios, the civil interference in war, the propaganda and the hybrid conflict and the public forces in Syria and Russia active.

Specialized in Asymmetric and Irregular warfare, the former corporate warriors lead the group with tactical capacity into row many of the scenarios, since the security of the diplimatic representative to the special operations and high conflict scenario, with direct battle, from soil to air.

To understand more, Executive Outcomes started in Africa the long range conflicts of paramilitary activites in countries with rebels implementationg communist governments and insurrection. Executive Outcomes used repressive forces and offered services of warfare, total warfare, physical conflicts, to opose repressive regimes in Africa.

The similarities of these new PMCs post-Blackwater, like Wagner Group or Sadat, with the first service offering of PMCs are very similar. Blackwater really changed the face of the conflicts and Sadat is remaining the new eras of war, together the military intelligence, high technology and high capabily of direct conflicts.

Also, Sadat is the expression of the fist projection of Erdogan in the oposition to the political regime, that recently treated Greece to gain popularity, and the new Erdogan salute to the Grey Wolves group, made the cauldron boil in Ankara.

The problem of these last conflics are that, they are requesting a cultural reconization on historical elements, that make Greece, Turkey, Orthodox Christians and Islamists make the conflict not geopolitical or diplomatic, but historic, with elements of crusades in between Christians and Muslims also, with the elements of anti-semitism and anti-globalists.

Also representation on Sadat shows that the NATO is losing territory in Eurasia, the projection of them is trying to operate in Balkans, as EU are dropping NATO, and the recently conflicts between NATO in Syria, the CIA groups and FBI groups in Syria, with rebels, ex-Talebans, ex-ISIS in Syrian territory represents that Erdogan projection of his power and the Russian projection of diplomacy and military are operationg to promote total control of Eurasia, and the elements of return of Ottomanism in Turkey, represents a feeling of possession to the causes of the conflict.

The procuration to the conflicts are remaining that USA Neocons are trying to implement a new politice that is not working in region, as the Iran didn't bent to their measures, and Russian sovereignty is still leading the Eurasia.

According to the Jerusalem Institute:

The Russians, predictably, have entered the game over the last half-decade. Irregular “volunteers” were the Kremlin’s preferred tool for sparking the ferment in Donetsk and Lugansk provinces of eastern Ukraine which led to the Russian conquest of these areas in 2014. Military contractors connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner company have played a crucial role as auxiliaries and deniable ground cannon fodder for the Russians in Syria.

Many of the individuals engaged with this company are themselves veterans of the fight in Ukraine.

SO, TO SADAT: According to its website, the company’s mission is to “establish a defensive collaboration and defensive industrial cooperation among Islamic countries to help [the] Islamic world take the place where it merits among superpowers by providing consultancy and training services.”

The Turkish version of the website sounds a little less like a run-of-the-mill private military contracting firm. Western states are described as “imperialist,” “crusader” countries.

Tanriverdi is an artillery officer who later specialized in asymmetric warfare. A former head of the Home Front Command in Northern Cyprus, he was expelled from the army because of his Islamist convictions in 1997. His ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the circles of the ruling AKP are of long standing.

A recent analysis by longtime Turkey-watcher Michael Rubin for the American Enterprise Institute noted eyewitness reports of armed SADAT personnel involved in the suppression of the coup attempt of July 2016. The failed coup heralded the beginning of a comprehensive attempt by the Turkish president to remake the Turkish Armed Forces along lines more amenable to himself.

As part of this process, hundreds of officers dismissed for Islamist leanings are being reinstated, and Tanriverdi was himself appointed chief military adviser to the president in late 2016.

SADAT has been heavily involved in Turkey’s training of Syrian Sunni Arab rebels for the fight against Assad. The company established a number of facilities in the Marmara region for this purpose at the beginning of the Syrian war. According to a 2012 report in the oppositionist Aydinlik newspaper, at least one of these training facilities was located at a Turkish military base in the Golcuk district of Kocaeli, formerly maintained as a training center by the Turkish Navy.

The Syrian rebellion in northern Syria is today able to survive only because of Turkey’s support. SADAT has played a key role in the development and facilitation of this relationship.

Tanriverdi does not deny SADAT’s contacts with the Free Syrian Army, but in a July 2016 article in Cumhurriyet he was quoted as noting that both the Turkish state and the US supported the Syrian opposition, and that SADAT’s contacts were carried out with the knowledge of the Turkish authorities.

Of course, the term “Free Syrian Army” is a wide one, and considerable evidence exists to suggest that elements of the Turkish state were directly offering assistance to the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra at certain stages during the war in Syria.

With crucial elections approaching in 2019, there are widespread fears in opposition circles that the government is training militias for use to intimidate government opponents.

One opposition politician, Meral Aksener, founder and leader of the nationalist Good Party, told a leftist newspaper that SADAT was behind these training camps. The company denied the allegations.

Unsurprisingly, there is an Israel angle to SADAT’s activities.

In an article quoted by MEMRI, Tanriverdi described Israel as “the outpost of the new crusade and a dagger in the heart of Islam.” In the article, Tanriverdi envisions the equipping and training of a Palestinian conventional army which would, in partnership with a united army of Islam, defeat and destroy Israel.

Turkish academic Cemil Tekeli was arrested in January by Israeli authorities and deported from the West Bank because of suspicions that he was assisting Hamas in money-laundering.

Tekeli is a close associate of Tanriverdi, according to a report in Makor Rishon, which published a picture of the two together.

So – engagement in assisting proxies abroad, providing muscle for a repressive political strategy at home and planning war with Israel. Erdogan is engaged, according to many, in a historic project of dismantling the republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk nearly 100 years ago and replacing it with a new, Islamic entity. This new entity will require new institutions.

The shadow warriors of SADAT appear to be in the process of establishing one of the most notable of these.

This measures are important to understand the situation of the scenario that is causing in Turkey, with the oposition of Erdogan and the propaganda in Turkey about the coup d'etat, that was not a coup, together the projection of forces and diplomacy of Turkey in Syrian territory.

The repressive ocasional tactic is to provide security of the rebels that want to take territory, also to regret the USA forces, private or military, that are involved with the Syrian rebels, to promote Iranian projection in territory, agains the Kurds forces and the military interference of USA and Israel.

Also the proxy conflicts make the projection of power in between the balance of Power in USA - Israel - Iran - Turkey - Russia a little hidden. The post-Blackwater conflicts are involved with less military forces, Special Operations and more of the part of the conflicts into the Private Armies, Insurgents and Hybrid Forces, with ex-terrorists and local mercenaries.

The father of the Wars, the Revolution in Military Affairs, Russia, started a projection on use the irregular conflicts by its side, and Sadat is being perfectly capable to manage the conflicts with the repressive capability and the representative diplomatic face of the Erdogan politics to protect the Turkey history and her allies!

It's notable how the PMCs are expressing the power of the government, regreting the idea of mercenarism in oldschool manners, the adventures on Africa, remaining the local conflicts on Cold War era, and the corporate warriors with business intelligence and military tactical range.

Use of the expression on Holy Wars are frequent since Bush Administration, when he used the Crusades to justify the attack on Afghanistan, legitimate, and Iraq, illegitimate, that made the conflicts a little more difficult to manage, and the kind of sex-appeal to the new range conflicts, new wars and hybrid conflicts, using civilian, paramilitary and technology.

HEAD OF TURKISH PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANY – KEY FIGURE OF TURKISH MILITARY INVASION IN SYRIA

https://southfront.org/head-of-turkish-private-military-company-key-figure-of-turkish-military-invasion-in-syria/

Taking control of the army and security forces after the July’s coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also plans to seize the initiative abroad, the Intelligen?e Online French information website reported.

The Turkish President expects that a major offensive in Syria, which has begun on August 23 under the name Euphrates Shield, will help him to get back into the epicenter of events. Seeking an assistance of a former head of the Special Operations Forces, Gen. Adnan Tanriverdi, Erdogan also hopes to strengthen his army.

According to the French website, almost all high-ranking Turkish military, in particular, those of them, who were involved in the fighting against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and constantly cooperated with general staffs of the Western countries, were gradually replaced after the coup attempt.

The liquidation of the Turkish military bothers Ankara’s anti-Islamist partners. Moreover, this elimination took place right before the Turkish invasion of Syria, which is covered with the slogan of seizure of the border areas, using by the IS, but actually aims to capture the city held by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). Although, head of the Turkish General Staff, Hulusi Akar, obedient to Erdogan, retained his post, all his subordinates were replaced.

An important factor, which, however, remained almost unnoticed, was the invitation of the largest Turkish owner of private military companies, Adnan Tanriverdi, to the Turkish President on August 16. This former general of the Special Forces, expelled from the army due to the fact that his superiors believed that he was too religious, should control the process of restructuring of the Turkish Army, primarily, including in it all officers, who were dismissed from the Armed Forces as too much practicing Islam.

In 2012, Tanriverdi created the first Turkish private military company, called SADAT. Using this company, Tanriverdi, who is considered close to Erdogan for many years, wants “to help Arab world to reach the level, which befits it among the great powers,” this follows from the book, written by him.

For this reason, SADAT operates only in countries, most of the population of which is represented by Muslims. After the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the private military company was regularly accused of training militants among Syrian refugees, who were on the territory of Turkey.

SADAT also tried to permeate in Libya and Pakistan. According to the website’s sources in Ankara, Tanriverdi several times visited the General Staff before the coup in order to get support from the military in preparation of foreign armed groups and, in particular, in participation in Islamic anti-terrorist coalition, which the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman, was trying to create during several months.

SADAT is represented in the Gulf region with the help of the Al Aquid Trading Saudi company, which is headed by a former employee of the Saudi Air Force Intelligence, Colonel Giza Ghazi Al-Harbi. Tanriverdi’s main interlocutor in the Turkish General Staff was Gen. Salih Ulusoy, who was responsible for strategic planning. However, today, Salih Ulusoy is in custody on charges of the July’s coup attempt.

The Turkish Army has started operations in Syria with significantly weakened capacities in the field of exploration, which was finally undermined after the coup attempt. On the one hand, director of the military intelligence service, Mustafa Ozsoy, has been being in prison already for several weeks. On the other hand, the MIT Turkish intelligence, also affected by the events that it could not foresee, still suffers from ‘summer elimination.’ The fragmented service, subordinated to Hakan Fidan, tries to save the honor in Erdogan’s eyes. The intelligence agency tries to establish a dialogue with its Syrian counterparts, primarily, with the powerful intelligence service of the Syrian Air Force.