Malhama Tactical - The Return of the Jihadist "Blackwater"

Jihadi claimed that the new model warfare promotes advantage to the scenario, and the new warfare scenarios promotes kind of constant training, the model of Special Forces, and the mnemonic program of repetition on training close to reality. 

Malhama Tactical is a claiming for the new model of warfare, the business warfare using the private sector and the business paradigm of marketing, propaganda, counter-propaganda, use of civilian trained and ex-military hired for small battles, escorts and direct combat with high capability. 

Malhama showed capability to promote disrupt in public security and promotes unrest and sabotage, hire of jihadists and ex members of ISIS or Al-Qaeda to promote new battle fronts and use of mercenaries.

The contract goes under the anti-Assat contracts, being a kind of criminal or terroristic mercenaries, but by other way, the NATO interest in Malhama on being anti-Aassat and promotes disruption against the regime influence.

The ambiguous aliance is a tactic under intelligence and psywar, in battlefield, using terrorists to achieve goals, and promote dubious operational scenario, where enemy forces joint together for common ends.

Not new paradigm, the change in the nature of the conflicts is a phenomenon that taskes less central of the core of military to the front of and centers of security achievement. PSCs and PMCs provide these kind of services just in time. This instances because of the advance in technology and military civilian complex, outsourcing and joint ventures, like the led of UAVs aircrafts, cyber warfare and private military training, use of local militias, and criminal organizations hired for war.

The system not only promoted by PSCs or PMCs but by Terrorists too, promoting payment for ex-military, ex-criminal and ex-terrorists for other cells. 

Privatization erotes to established tools for accountability. The logic of the market and the competitive advantage. In USA the oursourcinf of central powers in hands to executive branches, make decision makers to reduce costs, and reduces information avaiable to the public sector contracts and congress. For instance, the congress approves the military budget to contract out training and exert influence because the annual consolidated report on military assistance and sales does not include information on who is conducting the training.

Oursource reduces information avaiable to the public and pampening media coverage of contractor deployments. The case of Malhama Tactical can both provide the information and disinformation, promote propaganda anti-Government and the contract for small conflicts, without the contract of provide informative, just a contract for criminal activities if needed. And a kind of company that acts for the nation, under the logic of selling services but with the brances capable to promote mediatic propaganda, and business and opposition governmental support.

Interview with Abu Salman Belarus, Military Leader of Malhama Tactical

September 19, 2018  in Articles

https://eeradicalization.com/interview-with-abu-salman-belarus-military-leader-of-malhama-tactical/

Introduction

Malhama Tactical is a group that hasn’t received much attention but is growing more important by the day in Syria’s ongoing conflict. The group was founded in May 2016 by Abu Rofiq as an independent outfit, training rebel and jihadi groups in Syria’s northwestern Idlib, Hama and Aleppo provinces. Lately it has been particularly prominent in Idlib, training among others German jihadists and an elite unit of Hay’at Tahrir as-Sham, previously known as al-Qaeda’s representative in Syria, Jabhat an-Nusra.

In the media, Malhama Tactical has been called the first jihadist private military company (PMC). In 2017, Foreign Policy dubbed the group “The Blackwater of Jihad”.

Even though the group has existed for more than two years now, it is believed to have no more than fifteen to twenty core members, all originating from former USSR states. Initially, the group was led by an Uzbek, known only by his kunya (nom de guerre) Abu Rofiq. He told journalists that he had lived in Moscow and served in a special forces unit of the Russian army. Abu Rofiq was killed in a Russian airstrike in February 2017, alongside his wife and newborn son. Subsequently Abu Salman Belarus was appointed as the new leader and spokesman of the group. He is of Belarusian origin, as his name suggests. He joined the group in 2016.

As the group is an active user of social media services such as Twitter and Telegram, the authors have been able to interview the new leader. What follows is an edited reproduction of a series of questions asked in English and answered in Russian by Abu Salman Belarus. The discussions took place between late July and late August 2018.

Q: Could you explain the history of Malhama Tactical? Where and when was it founded and by who? How many men were in the original group and were you part of it?

A: Malhama Tactical was created around 2016, with the goal of increasing insurgents’ battle skills. We trained Jabhat Fatah Sham, Ajnad al Kavkaz, Jaysh Muhajirin wal-Ansar, Turkistanis , and other groups, even Ahrar as-Sham.

By the kindness of Allah [we] participated in many operations as a Spetsnaz group when our help was requested. First during the Aleppo blockade, we participated there as military advisors and trained almost all fighters and eventually successfully broke the blockade. In 2015, our brothers trained and prepared the operation for the capture of Abu ad-Dhuhur airbase. In 2016, we captured the heights of al-‘Ais . Furthermore we had a hand in more than 10 successful infiltration operations by our group and students.

We are primarily instructing insurgents in battle tactics, giving medical aid, working with armoured vehicles, mortars, sniper activity, and weapons modifications.

We even liquidated an [ethnic] Russian sniper and had clashes with other Russian forces. We fought against Hezbollah and killed a good number of them, one of our brothers was martyred back then.

We do not engage ourselves in teaching how to conduct terrorist attacks or killing peaceful civilians, however. We have never worked and will not work against civilians, regardless of their nationalities or religions. Our objectives are exclusively military facilities and war criminals. We are against any terrorist attacks where women and children and civilians can suffer.

Until now, by the kindness of Allah, we are teaching fighters of HTS and other groups. Quite a few of our students have become instructors, already working independently in different places. Many of us have former military experience. We have a lot of experience conducting battles in cities and in the desert.

Q: And two other related questions: who gets accepted to serve for Malhama Tactical? Are only Russian-speaking mujahidin allowed or can anyone join? How do you select the ones that can join, are there tests to become an instructor?

A: We don’t accept all units, we take former soldiers or talented and purpose-driven people, so that they would be motivated and follow our visions and goals.

No, we don’t only accept Russian speakers.

Actually, it’s not a business, our goal and our aid is for the Syrian people, we are here to assist helpless women and children.

We don’t demand payment for our work, we provide everything ourselves, along with friends and acquaintances. My aim is that our work should be free .

Q: Did you notice an evolution in the foreign fighters that came to Syria and joined your ranks? Is there a difference in military experience between the first and latest recruits? Can you still successfully recruit mujahidin from abroad and can they still enter Syria ? Did any of your Chechen or North Caucasian members have experience fighting in the North Caucasus before Syria? Did any of these members come from other jihadist groups in Syria? Do all of your North Caucasian members intend to stay in Syria forever, or do some of them want to return to fight in the North Caucasus?

A: I don’t see a difference [between fresh and veteran recruits], it happens that some groups have difficult training and others quickly learn everything and can successfully apply it.

As long as there is work here we will stay here, but we can’t forget about the Caucasus, there are brothers who want to work there when the time comes; some of the group are Caucasians.

Right now we don’t know of any new people entering Syria, the situation is not very good or stable, and the way in from Turkey is practically closed. In my group it’s almost all foreigners, most from Russia and the CIS.

Q: What is your opinion on the current situation in Idlib? Do you think the regime will attack soon? What do you think the Russians will do in this phase of the war? If the regime attacks, will you support Hay’at Tahrīr as-Shām?

Can you comment on the ISIS infiltration in Idlib? Where did they come from? Why did they come to Idlib and what is their aim?

“Stupid question”: how does your group communicate with trainees? I guess they don’t speak Russian. Do you have translators at your service?

Do you have plans for the future of Malhama Tactical after the battle for Idlib? Will Malhama Tactical train mujahidin in other places?

A:

There is still nothing clear regarding the situation in Idlib, we are prepared for anything insha’Allah and await what’s next.

Russians will play the main role in this attack, I heard they will use heavy weapons.

We were almost always with HTS and we will help them and fight together with them.

I don’t know about IS, right now they are very few, HTS already caught and executed many of them, those from the Uqariybat pocket left after coming from Turkey.

We speak in Arabic and instruct in their language, our fighters speak several languages.

Yes, there are plans. We are living through the battle and then we’ll see.

Malhama Tactical: The Blackwater of Jihad

https://special-ops.org/28491/malhama-tactical-blackwater-jihad/

Heavily armed and expertly kitted with body armor and ballistic helmets, the men can be seen defending bunkers, storming buildings, and even posing by whiteboards giving tactical lessons. Though the titles of these YouTube videos are written in Russian Cyrillic, their background music is an a cappella Islamic chant known as a nasheed, which is often used by extremist groups in propaganda films. But the men are no ordinary jihadis. They are members of Malhama Tactical, the world’s first jihadi private military contractor (PMC) and consulting firm.

Malhama Tactical isn’t an enormous military conglomerate like the infamous Blackwater (now named Academi). It consists of 10 well-trained militants from Uzbekistan and the restive Muslim-majority republics of the Russian Caucasus. But size isn’t everything in military consulting, especially in the era of social media. Malhama promotes its battles across online platforms, and the relentless marketing has paid off: The outfit’s fighting prowess and training programs are renowned among jihadis in Syria and their admirers elsewhere. It helps that until now the group has specialized its services, focusing on overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime and replacing it with a strict Islamic government.

The group’s leader is a 24-year-old from Uzbekistan who goes by the name Abu Rofiq (an Arabic pseudonym that means father of Rofiq). Small is known about him other than that he cycles through personal social media accounts rapidly, using fake names and wrong information to throw off surveillance efforts. In virtually every video and photo posted online, he wears a scarf or balaclava to cover his face from the nose down, leaving visible only his narrow dark eyes and long, somewhat tangled, pitch-black hair. He speaks fluent Russian, but with a slight Uzbek accent.

Since launching in May 2016, Malhama has grown to do brisk business in Syria, having been contracted to fight, and provide training and other battlefield consulting, alongside groups like the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the Nusra Front) and the Turkistan Islamic Party, a Uighur extremist group from China’s restive Xinjiang province. And despite latest rebel setbacks in Syria, including the loss of Aleppo, demand for Malhama Tactical’s services in the country is as powerful as ever, Abu Rofiq told Foreign Policy in an interview conducted over the messaging app Telegram.

But he is also beginning to think about expanding elsewhere. His group is willing to take work, Abu Rofiq says, wherever Sunni Muslims are oppressed. He cites China and Myanmar as places that would benefit from jihad. He also suggests that Malhama Tactical might go back to its roots, returning to fight in the North Caucasus against the Russian government.

In November, the group placed job ads on Facebook looking for instructors with combat experience to join the group. The ad described the outfit as a “fun and friendly team” looking for recruits who are willing to “constantly engage, develop, and learn” and work with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. It even specified that instructors were privy to benefits like vacation time and one day off a week from jihad. The wording was more befitting of a Fortune 500 company than a group of extremists fighting in a brutal and bloody war. Jihad went global long before Malhama Tactical, but rarely with so entrepreneurial a spirit.

Although Malhama Tactical is the first PMC to work exclusively for extremist groups, it’s hardly the first foreign PMC to enter the Syrian battlefield. The Syrian war has now lasted for nearly six years and cost the lives of more than 400,000 men, women, and children. And amid the chaos of groups like the Islamic State, the left-wing Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham vying for territory and influence, the Syrian front has also been a boon for military contractors, who have found work fighting on both sides of the war.

The first iteration of PMCs in Syria was the Slavonic Corps, an ill-fated, Hong Kong-registered company comprising ex-Russian military that briefly worked alongside government forces in 2013, according to a report by the Interpreter magazine. But it quickly became clear that they did not have the full support of the Syrian government. First, the Syrian army stole their vehicles, then their paychecks never arrived, and finally a Syrian air force helicopter crashed into the Slavonic Corps convoy after flying too low and running into power lines, injuring one mercenary. The Slavonic Corps’ misadventures came to an finish when the group disbanded after a defeat by rebels in the desert near the city of Sukhnah in southern Syria in October 2013. The mercenaries returned home to Moscow and were promptly arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) for their unsanctioned Syrian intervention.

Following the Kremlin’s own intervention in Syria in September 2015, nearly 1,500 Russian mercenaries arrived from the “Wagner” group, an infamous and secretive Russian PMC that previously fought alongside Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to an investigation by Sky News. Their mission was to assist the Assad regime, and unlike the Slavonic Corps, Wagner enjoys extensive support from the Russian government. Dmitry Utkin, a former special forces brigade commander of Russia’s military intelligence service, allegedly leads the group. Although small is known about Wagner, it’s believed that it mimics Academi’s model by operating as an elite infantry unit and relies on the Russian government for support, even flying into Syria on board official military aircraft and training at a Russian special forces base in Molkino in southwestern Russia. Wagner remains in Syria to this day.

At the same time, a litany of Russian-speaking militants have fought alongside jihadi groups waging war against the Syrian government. According to the Soufan Group, there are at least 4,700 foreign militants from the former Soviet Union in Syria, the majority of whom come from the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. These militants typically arrive in Syria better equipped and trained than local militants and with years of experience fighting the Russian government in the mountains of Chechnya and Dagestan during the 1990s and 2000s.

These battle-hardened militants quickly earned respect from local militants, who noticed the Russian speakers took on a much higher death rate than local militants. They came to populate the ranks of both the Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, as well as various smaller groups, where locals refer to them as inghimasi, a term used among jihadis to refer to militants who plunge into enemy front lines to inflict the maximum amount of casualties with no plan of returning alive. The archetypal inghimasi fights until he runs out of ammo before detonating his suicide vest as his position is overrun.

But while numerous of their compatriots have become front-line shock serviceman, the former Soviet militants of Malhama Tactical go a different way, carving out their own distinct niche between the worlds of professional PMCs and jihadi groups operating in Syria. They function as consultants, arms dealers, and, on occasion, elite warriors.

Malhama’s elite status makes sense against the background of Abu Rofiq’s own military career. Abu Rofiq told FP that he had moved as a young man from Uzbekistan to Russia, where, in addition to starting a family, he joined one of the Russian government’s most elite military units, a group of airborne serviceman known as the VDV. In 2013, Abu Rofiq left Russia for Syria, where rather than joining one faction, like most foreign militants do, he remained independent and moved between them, before founding Malhama in 2016.

Throughout 2016, Malhama Tactical’s units trained the hard-line Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in urban combat to help their fight against the Syrian regime in Aleppo. In one video, trainees practice firing multiple rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) rounds and work as squads to assault a building. In another, a two-man team clears rooms and eliminates targets using grenades and gunfire, all under the watchful eye of Malhama instructors.

This type of training isn’t cheap — the RPG rounds Malhama uses in its practice sessions are estimated to cost around $800 each on the black market — which is why military training for most rebel and jihadi groups in Syria has tended to consist of small more than marching, acrobatics, and basic marksmanship. But for jihadi groups that can afford it, Malhama Tactical’s infantry training is worth the expense. One European military contractor who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the group’s tactical skills would provide it, and whomever it trains, a distinct advantage on the Syrian battlefield.

Malhama Tactical’s operators have, on occasion, also acted as special forces for different jihadi groups. In September 2016, they embedded with the Turkistan Islamic Party to help it repulse an Assad regime attack in southern Aleppo, according to a rebel activist source familiar with the group. Still, Abu Rofiq says his outfit’s primary goal is to train other rebel and jihadi groups in combat, rather than fight on the front lines. Abu Rofiq admitted that Malhama also produces equipment for other jihadi groups as needed. Malhama, for example, manufactures accessories for the PKM, an extremely popular Russian-made 7.62 mm machine gun. The vests and grips, widely used in Aleppo during the intense fighting there, have become especially sought after among jihadis.

Malhama Tactical also takes its social media presence very seriously. The group advertises its services through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and the Russian social media site VKontakte, although the group’s account has been suspended. Its Instagram feed has the feel of something produced by a major corporate gun manufacturer. It features artsy, filtered photos of weapons and militants taken from multiple angles, interspersed between various high-quality Malhama logo designs. With more than 208,160 views on YouTube, Malhama has a large reach, especially for its size. By comparison, the Free Syrian Army al-Moutasem Brigade, which is 50 times larger and half a year older, has just over 110,000 YouTube views. Everyone from rebels in Syria to Ukrainian soldiers and Russian separatists in Donetsk has commented on the group’s posts.

Malhama’s YouTube and Facebook pages also showcase free online guides for jihadis, covering improvised grenade construction, weapon cleaning, room clearing, and urban combat, among other skills. The group’s instructors organize online training sessions — on subjects including battlefield first aid; the use of weapons, such as RPG-7s; hand signal systems for urban combat; and introductions on how to conduct ambushes — when in-person assistance and consulting is not possible.

Although Malhama Tactical charges for its services, Abu Rofiq insists he isn’t a mercenary. He says his group’s motivation transcends money. “Our goal is different; we are fighting for an concept,” he said — namely, jihad against Assad.

“We’ll see a lot more of this activity going forward in the decades to come,” said Sean McFate, an associate professor at the National Defense University and author of The Modern Mercenary, a book about private armies. For McFate, the growth of Malhama Tactical is a natural offshoot of the prolonged Syrian war, but the outfit’s mixture of extremist ideology with the privatization of war is a unique and troubling trend. “A jihadi group doing this is a modern level because if you’re talking about hardcore idealists paying for [military training], then that’s a milestone of modern warfare,” McFate said.

Abu Rofiq’s leadership has also brought him unwanted attention from the Russian government, which views him as a major terrorism threat. On Feb. 7, Russian airstrikes flattened Abu Rofiq’s apartment in Idlib, killing his wife, infant son, and several other civilians. Despite initial reports to the contrary, a local source confirmed that the airstrikes missed Abu Rofiq entirely. He had exited his apartment just moments before to help casualties from another nearby bombing.

In either case, Abu Rofiq’s jihadi PMC model has already had a significant effect on battles in northern Syria and could soon inspire copycat organizations outside the Middle East. Even if Abu Rofiq is killed and Malhama Tactical is destroyed, he’s already shaken up the war against Assad — and maybe even the future of the global military-industrial complex.

Neil Hauer, lead analyst for the SecDev Group in Ottawa, Canada, and Subkhan Khuriev contributed to this report.