They’re Nigeria’s unlikely saviors – most being white, in their
50s and 60s and combat veterans of the former South African apartheid regime.
But, tainted resumes notwithstanding, they’ve been getting the job done in northern Nigeria, hitting the Islamist terror group Boko Haram hard enough to send the jihadists into retreat, liberating dozens of villages and freeing hundreds of women and girls held as slaves and “bush wives” during a six-year-long reign of terror, reported the London Telegraph.
But, tainted resumes notwithstanding, they’ve been getting the job done in northern Nigeria, hitting the Islamist terror group Boko Haram hard enough to send the jihadists into retreat, liberating dozens of villages and freeing hundreds of women and girls held as slaves and “bush wives” during a six-year-long reign of terror, reported the London Telegraph.
Boko Haram recently pledged allegiance to the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In recent years, Boko Haram has
slaughtered entire villages, burned countless churches and targeted Christians
and moderate Muslims for death. It received global attention last year for
abducting nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls.
The squad of
mostly-white bush-warfare experts is employed by Specialized Tasks,
Training, Equipment and Protection, a private army run by Colonel Eeben Barlow, a former commander
in the South African Defense Force, where he defended the regime against insurrection
and fought border wars 30 years ago in neighboring Angola and Namibia.
Barlow’s firm was hired by Nigeria outgoing
President Goodluck Jonathan in January, as the failure of his administration to
stop Boko Haram or free the kidnapped schoolgirls became major campaign issues
ahead of the March election.
As
WND has reported, despite first lady Michelle Obama’s much-publicized
Twitter campaign to #BringBackOurGirls, President Obama withheld weapons and intelligence support from
Nigeria in its fight against the Islamists because Jonathan’s administration
stood by the nation’s laws criminalizing homosexual acts and strictly
forbidding same-sex marriage.
Jonathan was defeated in the March election by
retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who ruled as dictator there from 1983 until
1985, when he was removed through a coup. Buhari’s campaign was run by the
political firm founded by key Obama strategist David Axelrod.
Buhari previously vowed to institute Shariah law
in the Muslim-dominated parts of the country if elected.
“There are laws on the books of Nigeria, adopted
by a sovereign nation through its normal processes, that they consider to be
untoward, unacceptable, homophobic, whatever you want to call it, toward people
who are lesbians, gays, transgenders, bisexuals and so on,” said Security
Policy President Frank Gaffney.
According to the Jonathan campaign, Buhari made
a secret agreement with Washington to repeal those laws if he was elected.
But even as his Muslim opponent was bringing in
outside help from Washington to win the election, Jonathan was bringing in
Barlow’s STTEP team to turn the tide on Boko Haram.
“The campaign gathered good momentum and wrested
much of the initiative from the enemy,” Barlow, 62, told a seminar last week at
the Royal Danish Defense College. “It was not uncommon for the strike force to
be met by thousands of cheering locals once the enemy had been driven from an
area.”
He added: “Yes, many of us are no longer
20-year-olds. But with our age has come a knowledge of conflicts and wars in
Africa that our younger generation employees have yet to learn, and a steady
hand when things get rough.”
It is believed Barlow brought 100 fighters into
Nigeria, including black troops who have served in elite South African units
and some who once fought against him as communist guerrillas.
Initially Barlow planned only to train a team in
Nigeria to free the kidnapped schoolgirls, but ongoing massacres by Boko Haram
changed the mission to one of training Nigeria’s army in “unconventional mobile
warfare.”
Barlow introduced “relentless pursuit,” a tactic
that mimicked Boko Haram’s hit-and-run strikes. Employing jungle trackers to
determine the likely escape routes of the terrorists, Barlow helicoptered his
strike force to intercept the enemy and cut them off, eventually exhausting
them.
“Good trackers can tell the age of a track as
well as indicate if the enemy is carrying heavy loads, the types of weapons he
has, if the enemy is moving hurriedly, what he is eating, and so forth,” said
Barlow said.
Barlow disputes the Nigerian government’s claim
that his men have served only as “technical advisers,” noting he had been
“given ‘kill blocks’ to the front and flanks of the strike force and could
conduct missions in those areas.”
So, why do so many South Africans go to Nigeria
to fight, especially given the fact they face prosecution in their home country
for doing so?
“Very often it’s a money issue – they haven’t
done well and they need to make some,” Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of
the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, told the London Guardian last
month. “It’s not ideological, and it’s not the gung-ho image one has from the
film ‘Blood Diamond.’ This is the only skill these guys have. Most of them are
in their late 50s or early 60s and trying to make a late bit of income before
they’re past it. In five years’ time it won’t be an issue.”
Cilliers described the feedback he heard on a
recent Afrikaans radio program during which three or four mercenaries phoned
in. “They said things like: ‘I’m trying to help my kids. My lifestyle is quite
crappy. I’m trying to put the grandkids through school.’”
Tom Wolmarans, an apartheid-era policeman, said:
“There’s no work for white people in South Africa. Are they going up for money?
Yes, it has a role to play because they must make a living. That’s all they can
do; they are trained to do it. Some of them were laid off to early retirement.
People with a hell of a lot of experience. Good soldiers.”
Pilot Crause Steyl, 50, flew mercenaries into
war zones decades ago. “The South African mercenaries are giving Boko Haram a
hiding,” he said. “These guys are in their 50s, but for a pilot or tank driver
it doesn’t really matter. There’s going to be no Boko Haram. It boggles the
mind that Britain and America promised to help Nigeria but never did.
“But the South African government doesn’t want
them to exist. They wish them off the planet. When they come back from Nigeria,
it will try to prosecute them and put them in jail. Because the color of these
men is white, it makes laws that stop them earning money off shore. How wrong
can you be? There is now reverse racism and it’s difficult for white people to
get a job.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/white-mercenaries-have-boko-haram-on-run/
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