CAIRO – Scrambled to save his 42-year rule, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is relying on foreign mercenaries to quell growing popular protests demanding his ouster.
"I think the history of foreign mercenaries is one of the ability of those individuals to detach themselves from local conditions and to be relatively ruthless," Juan Zarate, a former US deputy national security adviser, told the Washington Post on Thursday, February 24.
"And in Libya, it's a thug corps."
Gaddafi, who has been in power for 42 years, has been facing growing protests demanding an end to his rule.
To quell the revolt, the Libyan leader was reportedly recruiting foreign mercenaries against the protestors.
Gaddafi’s youngest son Khamis was reportedly bringing mercenaries from African countries to fight against anti-regime protestors.
Identity cards from Guinea, Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Sudan were found on individuals wearing Libyan uniforms and killed in the eastern city of Benghazi and other locations.
In Benghazi, a number of mercenaries were arrested by residents in a court compound in the center of the city.
"They have been interrogated, and they are being kept safe, and they are fed well," Imam Bugaighis, 50, a university lecturer now helping organize committees to run the city, told Reuters.
He added that the mercenaries would be tried according to the law, but the collapse of institutions of state meant the timing was not clear.
Angry residents of Benghazi have destroyed the compound used by African mercenaries recruited by Gaddafi.
The building where residents said the mercenaries' battalion was holed up stood in ruins with its shattered walls scrawled upon with graffiti condemning Gaddafi saying "Libya is Free" and "Down with Gaddafi".
Paramilitary
Analysts believe that the Libyan leader is also using paramilitary troops to quell the revolution.
"You have the traditional army and you have a parallel army," said Noman Benotman, a senior analyst at Quilliam, a London counter-extremism think tank.
"The army is weak, not a significant power.
The parallel units are controlled by the most loyal people, not just to the regime, but to Colonel Gaddafi personally," he said.
There is no information about the exact number of paramilitary forces at Gaddafi's disposal.
Estimates say that they is a 3,000-man Revolutionary Guard Corps plus unknown numbers of fighters in the Islamic Pan African Legion, the People's Cavalry Force and various "people's militias."
The Pan African Legion, which Gaddafi established decades ago, has historically drawn fighters from across Africa.
"Libya is better at internal repression than in dealing with foreign threats," Anthony H. Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote in a study.
They noted that Gaddafi’s paramilitary forces "act as a means of controlling the power of the regular military and providing Gaddafi with security."
