Outsourcing Repression: Ethnic Contingents in the Arab Spring

Francis Wilson
From the first protests in Tunisia in 2010 to the present day, the various regimes of the Middle
East have had their security apparatuses tested by a series of mass uprisings known collectively as the
Arab Spring. As seen by events in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and other countries, the survival of incumbent
regimes was largely dependent on the choices and actions of regime security forces. This paper will call
attention to practice of recruiting foreign security forces in certain states, and will explain the potential
effects of their use . This paper will first examine existing literature on civil-military relations in the
Middle East and establish that while the parallel military system present in many Arab regimes has been
studied considerably, the specific use of hired foreigners has been overlooked. Through both historical
context and modern case studies, this paper will illustrate how foreign security personnel have been used
to violently suppress protest movements and how their presence can have serious domestic and even
regional implications.
When protestors took to the streets in countries across the Middle East, regimes reacted by
fielding a combination of hired thugs, police, paramilitary forces, and soldiers against them. Notably,
some protesters found themselves facing not their own countrymen, but foreigners who often did not
even speak the same language. Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, regime reactions to mass
protests across the region have revealed a trend of hiring foreigners for internal security. The most
significant examples of this trend can be found in two states that keenly felt the effects of street
protests the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. While the uprisings in Bahrain and
Libya played out very differently, numerous similarities can be found between the two uprisings with
regards to the conduct of foreign security units and the reaction of the general populace to their use. By
analyzing the events of these two uprisings, I will illustrate that reliance on foreigners for internal
security represents a dangerous practice that should concern both regional governments and indeed
any state that has interests in the region.
The use of these individuals by authoritarian regimes is not only a continuation of previous
coup-proofing practices but also represents an attempt to create security forces detached from society
in order to effectively suppress internal dissent. By investigating two case studies of states where
foreign riot police and soldiers have been used to support an authoritarian regime, I will illustrate that
the usage of foreigners significantly exacerbates ethnic tensions and increases the occurrence of human
rights violations. In multi-ethnic states where a precarious balance exists between citizens, expatriate
workers, and ruling regimes, the added element of foreign security forces can disrupt an already fragile
status quo. Moreover, the recruitment of foreigners directly undermines the legitimacy of the regimes
that use them and constitutes a threat to regional stability in the future.
Terminology:
Before the use of foreigners by regimes throughout the Arab world can be properly analyzed,
a proper frame of reference for their study must first be established. Throughout the Arab uprisings,
Western media sources, opposition groups such as the Bahraini Center for Human Rights, and even the
United Nations Security Council have used the loaded term mercenary to describe the presence of
foreigners among regime forces.
1
However, the use of this overly broad term has been politicized to the
point that it often detracts from informed analysis. Thomas K. Adams adeptly summarizes the
motivations that often accompany its use, arguing that: The inexact term mercenary is often used as a
term of opprobrium, applied to any police, military, or paramilitary which the user dislikes.
2
In the case
of Bahrain and Libya, mercenary has been used in order to portray foreign security forces as
negatively as possible in the arenas of public opinion and international law. According to the Protocol
Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, a mercenary is any person who:

(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in
fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially
in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed
forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party
to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member
of its armed forces.
3

International law does not look kindly upon individuals judged to be mercenaries. Under the
Geneva Convention, a mercenary has no right to be either a combatant or a prisoner of war.
4

Additionally, numerous UN resolutions ranging from 1973 to 2011 condemn the use of mercenaries by
states and criminalize mercenarism itself.
5
While the surge of fighters brought into Bahrain and Libya
during the uprisings undoubtedly fulfill most of these legal definitions, describing other foreigners that
had served for decades before the uprisings with the same term detracts from the complexity of the
situation. In both countries, outsiders were brought in during the protests as a continuation of a
longstanding practice of recruiting foreigners into the security services. Tuareg fighters in Libya and
Pakistani riot police in Bahrain represent a category distinctly separate from both the mercenaries of the
past and the private military contractors (PMCs) of the present. The long-term incorporation of these
foreigners into the security apparatuses of their host states implies a permanence which is absent from
the legal definition of a mercenary, who is hired for a specific conflict. As individuals hired not just for a
single conflict, but also naturalized as citizens and incorporated into existing security structures, the
recruitment of these soldiers represents a separate and unique practice. Because of the insufficiency of
the word mercenary, this paper will avoid the term and will instead refer to any individual hired from a
foreign country and incorporated into both the security apparatus and citizenry of a host state as a
foreign fighter, or as a member of a foreign security unit.
Historical Precedent
To understand the motivations of certain states for hiring foreigners, one must first look at
the unique security dynamic that has made the Middle East conducive to the recruitment of foreigners.
One of the most significant traits of the security sector in Arab authoritarian regimes is what has been
described as the hybrid nature and purposes of the coercive apparatuses of many Middle Eastern
states.
6
As Figure 1 illustrates, authoritarian regimes, especially Bahrain and Libya, have invested
considerably in internal security.
Figure 1: Personnel Compositions of Middle Eastern Security Apparatuses
7


In many states, a national army exists in parallel with much larger internal security services whose
training and institutional culture make them almost indistinguishable from the military. With no fewer
than fifty-five coups in the region since 1949, Arab leaders have tended to distrust national armies and
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
Tunisia Yemen Saudi
Arabia
Egypt Syria Libya* Bahrain* Iraq
Army Personnel per 100,000 inhabitants
Interior Ministry and Paramilitary Personnel per 100,000 inhabitants
rely more on forces closely connected to the regime for internal security.
8
This hybrid security dynamic
has led Philippe Droz-Vincent to describe the governments of the Arab world as much more police
states than military regimes.
9
While there are numerous differences between militaries throughout the
region, coop-proofing regimes and shielding them from military power grabs is a consistent practice in
the Arab world. Thus in many states, a marginalized army is confined to the external defense of the
state and is counterbalanced by well-funded and politically powerful police and paramilitary forces
which constitute the regimes first line of defense against internal dissent. With authoritarian
governments mistrusting their politically unreliable militaries, the recruitment of outsiders seemingly
incapable of holding political power represents a logical development in the hybrid security system.
Historically, foreign soldiers in the Middle East such as the Mamluks and Janissaries were
recruited from the fringes of vast, multi-ethnic Islamic empires. In part due to the forces of globalization,
foreigners once again are being recruited in Bahrain and Libya, countries with small citizen populations
located at hubs of global migration. In both these states, foreigners from fractious marginal areas have
been actively recruited with promises of citizenship and high salaries and deployed against protestors
during the uprisings.
Libya:
In Colonel Muammar Qadaffis Libya, the use of foreigners for security had its origins in
Qadaffis attempt to symbolically establish Libyas identity as an African country. With his Arab
nationalist overtures rejected by the leaders of other Arab states during the late 1970s, Qadaffi began to
pursue an intensive campaign of pan-African policies, shifting Libyas focus south.
10
In 1978, the Libyan
army invaded Chad supported by an Islamic Legion whose members hailed from countries throughout
the region. Many of these legionnaires were ethnic Tuareg, a pastoralist Berber minority spread
throughout North Africa and at the forefront of several separatist movements. Although the Chadian
campaign ended in defeat for Libya, the war had a significant impact on those Tuareg who participated.
At around the same time that the war ended in 1987, Qadaffi opened Libya to immigration from sub-
Saharan African nations, leading to an influx of immigrants both legal and illegal that was estimated in
2011 to number between 1 and 2 million.
11
Lured by promises of Libyan citizenship (a promise that
failed to materialize for most), many Tuareg stayed with the Libyan security apparatus, eventually
forming the Tuareg only Maghawir brigade.
12

When the Libyan uprising threatened the stability of Qadaffis regime in 2011, the Tuareg of
the Maghawir brigade were at the forefront of the fighting, while more were brought into Libya from
Mali and Chad.
13
However, actual number of Africans who fought for Qadaffi remains unknown
(estimates range from 1,500 - 10,000) since the difference between those who were brought in during
the war and those that were already in Libya remains ambiguous.
14
It is claimed that these Tuareg were
promised as much as $1,000 a day during the war, with a more conservative report describing a
permanent salary of $1,300 a month, a relatively immense sum considering that over half of the
populations in the fighters original countries of Mali and Chad live below the international poverty line
of $1.25 per day.
15

During the uprising, the separateness of the Tuareg from the Libyan people contributed to a
willingness to engage in human rights violations that was not mirrored by the Libyan regular army. An
estimated 80 percent of Qadaffis regular forces deserted the regime during the war, with many high
ranking officers citing an unwillingness to engage in violence against unarmed fellow citizens as a motive
for defection.
16
The Tuareg had no such qualms, even resisting calls from Malian Tuareg leaders to
defect to the rebels in the final weeks of the war.
17
As a result, they were swiftly labeled as foreign
mercenaries alongside other sub-Saharan Africans (some of whom were migrant workers pressed into
service), even though many of them had been living in Libya for years.
18
When Qadaffis regime
collapsed, the prominent role that sub-Saharan Africans had played in supporting him was the catalyst
for a surge in discrimination by Libyan Arabs.
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published detailed reports that
document the beating and imprisonment of any Africans suspected of being Qadaffi loyalists by post-
war revolutionary militia (thuwwar), as well as the arbitrary arrest of thousands of men, women, and
children.
19
According to Amnesty International, Racist and xenophobic attacks, already frequent before
the unrest, increased as a result of the breakdown of law and order and an escalation of xenophobic
rhetoric by both sides of the conflict.
20
Due to the use of African fighters by the regime, the pejorative
connotations of the word mercenary have been used to give legitimacy to anti-African sentiment. The
New York Times reported that Many Tripoli residents including some local rebel leaders now
often use the Arabic word for mercenaries or foreign fighters as a catchall term to refer to any
member of the citys large underclass of African migrant workers.
21
The increase in racially motivated
violence forced an estimated 212,000 Africans to flee the country in 2011, and as of June 2014, at least
6,000 remained detained by Libyas Interior Ministry or revolutionary militias in substandard
conditions.
22

While the upsurge in violence against sub-Saharan Africans in Libya is directly related to
Qadaffis use of foreign fighters, an undercurrent of anti-African sentiment already existed long before
the regimes fall. Although Qadaffis immigration reforms were meant to enhance Libyas African
identity, they instead perpetuated Libyan resentment towards African migrants who were associated
with crime, disease, and drugs in the public eye well before the war. According to a 2004 report by the
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, migrant African workers in Libya
faced a climate of anti-Black sentiment and racially motivated acts against foreign workers even
before the uprising .
23
This sentiment manifested itself most visibly in a series of riots in 2000 that
claimed the lives of several migrants.
24
While it is difficult to ascertain the true number of Africans who
have been killed or detained thus far, the sheer volume that have chosen to flee the post-war violence
underscores the fact that the current situation is unprecedented.
Bahrain:
Although the situation in Bahrain is made even more complex than the Libyan uprising by the
sectarian divide in the country and the fact that protests continue to the present day, the presence of
paid foreigners in the kingdom is in many ways similar. Bahrain is a nation of approximately 1.2 million
people, where the Sunni minority Al Khalifa monarchy rules over a Shiite majority that comprises
between 60 and 70 percent of Bahrains citizens.
25
As a result, the Al Khalifa family has deliberately
denied Shiites access to the army and police and has relied heavily on the powerful Special Security
Forces (SSF) for internal security, a group under the oversight of the investigative National Security
Agency (NSA). For many Bahrainis, the NSA and the SSF exemplify the fact that the regime has
entrusted foreigners with the internal security of the state. According to the opposition, 90 percent of
the SSFs 20,000 members are alleged to be non-Bahraini, and among the NSA, the proportion of
foreigners is estimated to be 64 percent.
26
Both organizations contain a significant number of Sunni
Pakistanis, the majority of whom are ethnic Baloch from Pakistans troubled Baluchistan province.
According to Pakistani news sources, approximately 10,000 Pakistanis current serve in the kingdoms
security services, including a large number recruited during the 2011 protests.
27
Most importantly, in
addition to their compensation, they are provided with housing separate from the Bahraini population
and are eventually naturalized - obtaining coveted Bahraini citizenship. By naturalizing Sunni foreigners,
the Bahraini state has not only created a foreign force dependent on the regime, but is also gradually
altering the demographic composition of the kingdom in favor of the Sunni minority.
While the preference for Sunni foreigners in the Bahraini security apparatus has been a point
of contention for the Shiite opposition since at least 2006, it was during the height of the protests from
February to May 2011 that their key role in supporting the state became evident.
28
When tens of
thousands of Bahrainis occupied Pearl Roundabout and rallied in numerous other locations throughout
the city, Pakistanis played a key role in the March crackdown. These clashes provoked anti-foreigner
slogans such as Oh naturalized, Oh mercenary, Oh killer, your departure time has come, Shia plus
Sunnis minus naturalized equals a loving country and "There is no security when the police come from
Pakistan," sentiments which highlight how halting the recruitment and naturalization of ethnically
separate soldiers has come to be at the forefront of protestors demands.
29
However, anger towards
the institutionalized preference for Sunnis in the security forces has also aggravated an already high
degree of mistrust of immigrants by the Shia community.
30

In Bahrain, the use of foreign security forces to crack down on protests led to a backlash,
once again against a significant migrant population. Almost half of Bahrains population consists of
South Asian migrants, a demographic divided among over 300,000 Indians, 100,000 Bangladeshis, and
60,000 Pakistanis and comprising a disproportional 98 percent of low paying jobs.
31
According to
Andrew Gartner, before the uprising South Asian migrants in Bahrain faced a system of dominance that
is oftentimes violentin both a structural sense and in the outright forms of violence that structure of
dominance enables.
32
A combination of the kafala patronage system that gives Bahraini employers
immense power over migrant workers and stiff competition between Bahrainis and migrants for jobs
has led to foreign workers being both looked down upon and viewed as an economic threat in Bahraini
society. These sentiments have manifested in the abuse of migrant workers by their employers as well
as by general Bahraini society. However, the Bahraini uprising caused incidents of racially motivated
violence to increase as Bahrainis directed their anger towards migrant workers that they associated with
the regime.
According to a Human Rights Watch Report, attacks on South Asian migrants escalated
drastically during the protests in February and March of 2011.
33
The Bahrain Independent Commission
of Inquiry reported that 87 Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi migrants had been injured, while 5
expatriate workers and two riot police of Pakistani origin were killed during the height of the protests.
34

Many of these casualties occurred during racially motivated attacks on South Asian migrants who were
verbally and physically abused and called mercenaries by some of the protesters.
35
Although
Pakistanis believed to be in the security forces were the main targets of such attacks, racial conflation on
the part of Bahrainis led to Bangladeshis and Indians being attacked as well.
36
In addition, the alleged
coercion of Bangladeshi workers to protest on behalf of the regime has undoubtedly increased tensions
between expatriate workers and anti-regime protestors.
37
Similar to the situation facing sub-Saharan
Africans in Libya, South Asians of all nationalities and professions found themselves targeted on the
often incorrect assumption that they were regime mercenaries because of their ethnicity.
Parallels and Implications
A close study of the events of the uprisings in Libya and Bahrain reveals striking similarities
with regards to the impact of foreign security units. However, care must be taken not to paint these two
highly different case studies with the same brush. In Libya, foreign brigades were used to supplement
the conventional army during a civil war, while Bahrain represents a regime that relied almost
exclusively on foreigners to put down peaceful protests. Nevertheless, the events of the Libyan civil war
and the current obstacles to reconstruction provide lessons not only relevant to Bahrain, but also to any
nation that is considering hiring foreigners for internal security.
In both Bahrain and Libya, foreigners were at the forefront of the regimes crackdown against
the uprisings. The overwhelmingly foreign SSF led the government crackdown against protestors in
March of 2011, while Qadaffis African fighters aided in the suppression of protests in Tripoli and fought
against rebels in Misrata and Zintani.
38
In both cases, these groups have been implicated in serious
human rights violations and the use of deadly force against unarmed protestors. It can be argued that as
foreigners dependent on the regime for their salaries and citizen status, hired soldiers have greater
incentive to fire on peaceful protestors than domestic security forces. In papers analyzing the dynamics
of loyalty among militaries during the Arab Spring, it has been posited that soldiers and police were
more hesitant to fire on protestors in situations where they were able to relate to protestors either
ethnically or religiously.
39

More obviously, socioeconomic factors also contribute to regime loyalty. In papers exploring
civil-military relations, scholars have described national armies as extremely reluctant to use deadly
force, especially in states like Egypt and Yemen where the military has held a direct stake in society and
the economy.
40
The foreign soldiers of our case studies have no such reasons for reluctance. As
outsiders housed separately from the rest of the population, they are unable to connect ethnically and
sometimes even linguistically with the demands of protestors, and any societal stake that they hold,
such as citizenship, is contingent on the survival of the regime. Unlike contract-based PMCs, foreign
security personnel are intended to be permanent residents of their host states, and often bring their
families with them, further raising the consequences should their patron regime collapse. All of these
factors dissuade desertion or defection and give soldiers much more incentive to commit human rights
violations for the regime.
In Libya and Bahrain, the ethnic separateness of foreign fighters exacerbated already existing
xenophobia caused by competition from migrant labor. In remarkably foresighted 1980 book about the
use of martial races, Cynthia H. Enloe outlines the implications of the use of ethnically separate
soldiers with regards to domestic race relations.
For they are brought into armies in part because they are culturally and politically distant from the
rest of the population. Thus they will stand by the central regime which has bestowed jobs and prestige on them,
even should the rest of the army become disaffected or begin to empathize with civilian dissidents. On the other
hand, if security policy makers use such units too heavy-handedly and exclusively as instruments for suppressing
domestic disorder, the units and the ethnic groups tied to them run the risk of being labelled pariahs or alien
mercenaries [emphasis added].
41

When peaceful demonstrations were repressed by security forces of similar ethnicity to
migrant worker populations, foreigners became associated with the regimes failed labor and
immigration policies as well as its repressiveness towards its own citizens. These tensions were further
reinforced by attempts in Libya and Bahrain to force migrant populations to support regimes, whether
through rally coercion of Bangladeshis in Bahrain or the conscription of African workers into Qadaffis
army.
Both of these states also possessed a history of discrimination by the general populace
against migrant workers, violence which reached unprecedented heights during the uprisings. In Libya,
the climate of xenophobia created by these large scale attacks prompted migrants of all nationalities to
flee the country, forcing unemployed individuals back into African countries already suffering from high
unemployment and lack of opportunities. Even worse, the return of between 2000-4000 heavily armed
Tuareg fighters to Northern Mali armed and reinvigorated an already present Tuareg rebellion,
eventually plunging the country into civil war.
42

On the economic side, outgoing remittance payments from Libya plummeted 59.6 percent in
2011 during the civil war, representing the loss of almost a billion dollars annually.
43
If a commensurate
drop in remittance payments were to occur in Bahrain, it would mean the loss of about $1.2 billion in
annual outgoing flows, which would have considerable economic impact on the development of South
Asian communities dependent on remittances.
44

Figure 2: Remittance Outflows from Libya and Bahrain (Millions of Dollars)
45


Moreover, given that migrant workers make up an overwhelming proportion of low wage
jobs in Libya and Bahrain, the labor void left by their absence in key industries such as construction and
oil production would be hard to fill. The International Organization for Migration sees this as a potential
obstacle for rebuilding in Libya, stating that Libya may encounter serious economic and social problems
if it cannot attract both skilled and low-skilled migrants to return to help rebuild the country and
address anti-migrant sentiment.
46
However, the anti-immigrant climate in Libya shows no signs of
abating, as government controlled militias and the Ministry of the Interior pursue a policy of arrest and
detention much more . On the other hand, the migration of Tuareg forces has had considerable effects
on both Libya and the entire Sahel region. Many Tuareg fighters have returned to Southern Libya since
fleeing in 2011, and have become a force unto themselves, with the Magwahir Brigade (now renamed
as the Tend Brigade) becoming a significant faction in the area.
47
With former regime fighters gaining
power in the new Libya, attempts to revoke their citizenship (such as a December 2013 law that
delegitimizes anyone who was granted citizenship for military purposes or political reasons) will no
doubt add to the woes of an already besieged Libyan government.
48

* Libyan Civil War
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Outgoing Remittance Flows: Bahrain Outgoing Remittance Flows: Libya
However, although the points listed above represent some of the potential consequences
should a regime collapse due to internal pressure, equally significant are the implications of a stable
state reliant on foreign security forces. In the context of classic definitions of the state and legitimacy,
the recruitment of foreign security personnel represents the undermining of the states monopoly on
violence. By classic definitions, a state is characterized by three main conditions: historically demarcated
boundaries , a monopoly on the use of force within those boundaries, and a shared national identity. In
both Libya and Bahrain, the concept of a unified national identity is compromised by a sectarian divide
and the presence of a migrant population larger than the citizen populace (Bahrain), or by tribal and
regional loyalties (as in Libya). While Bahrain has naturally possessed historically demarcated boundaries
because of its island status and small size, Libya has not due to its relatively recent unification and a
significant East-West divide. For both of these states, considerable challenges to statehood and national
identity already exist. By outsourcing the monopoly on violence to foreigners, states like Bahrain and
Libya undermine the credibility of their rule by denying citizens participation in the protection of the
state and create an unbridgeable gulf between rulers and ruled. In addition, the engineered
naturalization of foreigners who support the regime devalues the meaning of citizenship and further
alienates the government from its constituents.
Therefore, rather than viewing the use of paid foreigners as an additional, inevitable
development in the Arab security sector, the fact that a state requires ethnically distinct individuals to
keep the peace indicates that states insecurity with regards to its own stability. For outside observers,
the use of foreign fighters should be a warning sign indicating that the hiring state is wracked with deep
internal divisions, regardless of present appearances of stability. In these states, the internal threats that
leaders perceive are so great that they exceed the states traditional security resources.
While the importation and naturalization of foreigners may seem like an effective short term
solution for regimes with underdeveloped institutions, the long term implications far outweigh any
superficial benefits. These implications are especially relevant to Bahrain, where the American military
presence in the form of the Fifth Fleet has guaranteed the Bahraini regime protection from any external
military threat. This has allowed the Bahraini regime to keep its military small, sparing it from the need
to conscript Shiite manpower through the creation of a national army and allowing it to focus on regime
security. The fact that the SSF employs twice as many personnel as the Bahraini Army, Navy, and Air
Force combined is a testament to the Al Khalifas security priorities.
49
If the Bahraini regime is to make a
serious attempt to address the concerns of protestors through reform and dialogue, the presence of
large numbers of naturalized foreigners in the SSF will be a serious obstacle to a political solution, and
may dissuade the Al Khalifa regime from negotiating at all. The fact that post-uprising promises from the
Ministry of the Interior to open 20,000 jobs (including 500 new community police) to both Sunnis and
Shiites have largely failed to materialize illustrates the Bahraini governments unwillingness to enact any
serious change in its internal security strategy.
50
Moreover, the difficulties encountered by the Libyan
government in dislodging foreign fighters and revoking their citizenship does not bode well for the
demands of the Bahraini opposition, even if they are able to force a policy or regime change. However, if
the regime continues to rely on imported Sunnis for security, the Shiite opposition will either resort to
increasingly more drastic tactics to forestall being reduced to a minority, or foreign security personnel in
the country will gain influence to the point where they themselves constitute a political threat. In any
case, the prospects for the stability of the Al Khalifa regime are not hopeful if it retains current policies.
Looking Forward
Qadaffi under Libya and Al Khalifa Bahrain represent an unsustainable, pre-modern method
of divide and rule where the raison detre of the states coercive apparatus is the preservation of the
regime and not the protection of the people. The questions of legitimacy and stability posed by these
case studies have become even more significant as other Gulf States follow Bahrains example. A 2011
article by the New York Times revealed the existence of a $529 million contract between the UAE and
the PMC Reflex Responses to train a battalion of eight hundred Columbians and South Africans, a project
overseen by Erik Prince, former CEO of Blackwater.
51
Ostensibly, this battalion is meant to counter
Iranian influence in the region and, as a contract between a government and a Western corporation, is
markedly different from the informal recruitment of foreigners by Bahrain and Libya. However, with a
well-equipped army consisting of 44,000 personnel, it seems implausible that 800 infantry would
significantly tip the military balance against Iran.
52
Rather, experts interviewed on Al-Jazeera English
believe that there are plans to use them to counter internal threats such as local dissidents, terrorist
groups, and the UAEs large migrant worker population.
53
The individuals at the highest levels of this
project have shown an understanding of the potential of culturally and ethnically separate soldiers. Erik
Prince, who played a central role in the recruitment of these soldiers, is reported as expressly advising
recruiters not to hire Muslims, because Muslims could not be relied upon to kill other Muslims.
54
The
upheaval of the Arab Spring and the apparent effectiveness of foreign security units in Bahrain have set
a dangerous precedent. If governments across the Arab world begin to view the practice of hiring
foreigners for security as viable, it is possible that more of the population poor yet resource rich states
of the region will turn to their use. If this becomes the case, then the legitimacy of these regimes will be
seriously called into question both domestically and on the world stage, with severe implications for
stability in the future.


1
"The Bahraini Authorities Recruit of Mercenaries from Makran Town, Pakistan," Bahrain Center for Human Rights,
last modified June 7, 2009, accessed July 16, 2014, http://bahrainrights.hopto.org/en/node/2902.; UN Security
Council, Resolution S/RES/1973, The Situation in Libya Mar. 17, 2011,
http://www.un.org/docs/sc/unsc_resolutions11.htm

2
Adams, Thomas K. "The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict." Parameters, Summer 1999, 104.
3
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of
International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), June 8, 1977, Article 47,
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/375?OpenDocument

4
Ibid.


5
UN General Assembly, Resolution 44/34, International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and
Training of Mercenaries, Dec. 4, 1989, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/44/34.

6
Sayigh, Yezid. "Agents of Coercion: Armies and Internal Security Forces. International Journal of Middle East
Studies 43, no. 3 (August 2011): 404.

7
Due to a lack of reliable statistics regarding quantities foreign fighters in accepted military reference sources, I
have used the estimates of 10,000 African fighters and 20,000 SSF personnel for Libya and Bahrain, respectively.
The Military Balance 2012, ed. John Chipman (Abingdon, UK: Routledge Journals, 2012); Cordesman, Anthony H.,
and Khalid R. Al-Rodhan. Gulf Military Forces in an Area of Asymmetric Wars (Wesport, CT: Praeger Security
International, 2007), s.v. "Bahrain," by Anthony H. Cordesman and Khalid R. Al-Rodhan; Cordesman, Anthony H.
Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian, The North African Military Balance: Force Developments and Regional Challenges
(Council On International and Strategic Studies, 2010), 86, PDF.

8
Quinlivan, James T, p. 133.; "Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East." International
Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999). Accessed June 30, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539255

9
Droz-Vincent, Philippe. "A Return of Armies to the Forefront of Arab Politics." IAI Working Papers 11, no. 2 (July
2011): 3.

10
John Wright, A History of Libya (London, UK: C. Hurst & Co., 2010), 211.

11
"Libya: Stop Arbitrary Arrests of Black Africans." Human Rights Watch. last modified September 4, 2011.
Accessed July 30, 2014. http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/04/libya-stop-arbitrary-arrests-black-africans.

12
Wolfram Lacher, Libya's Fractious South and Regional Instability, issue brief no. 3 (Geneva, Switzerland: Small
Arms Survey, 2014), 2.

13
Ibid.

14
McGregor, "What the Tuareg Do after the Fall of Qaddafi Will Determine the Security Future of the Sahel," 7.;
Morning Edition. "Libya's Gadhafi Accused of Using Foreign Mercenaries." Natl. Public Radio. July 17, 2014
(originally aired February 23, 2011). Narrated by Ofebeia Queist-Arcton.

15
Gwin, Peter. "Former Qaddafi Mercenaries Describe Fighting in Libyan War." The Atlantic, August 31, 2011.
Accessed July 16, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/08/former-qaddafi-mercenaries-
describe-fighting-in-libyan-war/244356/.: UNICEF. "Chad - Statistics." UNICEF. last modified 2007-2011. Accessed
July 16, 2014. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/chad_statistics.html.; "Mali - Statistics." UNICEF. last modified
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16
Al Jazeera and agencies, "'Scores Defect' from Gaddafi's Army," Al Jazeera English, last modified May 31, 2011,
accessed July 31, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/05/20115308196965572.html.

17
McGregor, "What the Tuareg Do after," 8.

18
Anna Branthwaite, "Migrants Forced to Fight for Gaddafi," Al Jazeera English, last modified April 9, 2011,
accessed July 31, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/05/20115308196965572.html.

19
Amnesty International. Detention Abuses Staining the New Libya. London, UK: Amnesty International, 2011.;
"Libya: Stop Arbitrary Arrests of Black Africans," Human Rights Watch, last modified September 4, 2011, accessed
July 30, 2014, http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/04/libya-stop-arbitrary-arrests-black-africans.


20
Amnesty International. The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances, and Torture. London, UK: Amnesty
International, 2011.

21
Kirkpatrick, David D. "Libyans Turn Wrath on Dark-Skinned Migrants." New York Times (New York, NY),
September 4, 2011. Accessed July 30, 2014.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/world/africa/05migrants.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

22


23
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination CERD/C/64/CO/4, Concluding Observations of the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - Libyan Arab Jamrhiriya.: U.N., 2004.

24
The Economist (London, UK). "Libya and Africa: Pogrom." October 12, 2000, International. Accessed July 17,
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25
Bassiouni, Mahmoud Cherif, Nigel Rodley, Badria Al-Awadhi, Philippe Kirsch, and Mahnoush H. Arsanjani. Report
of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. Manama, Bahrain: Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry,
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26
Bahrain Center for Human Rights. "Bahrain: Dangerous Statistics and Facts about the National Security
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http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2784.

27
Syed, Bajar Sajjid. "Bahrain king to visit JSHQ today." Dawn (Pakistan), March 19, 2014. Accessed July 24, 2014.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1094120/bahrain-king-to-visit-jshq-today.

28
In 2006, Dr. Salah Al Bandar, a chancellor at the Cabinet Affairs Ministry, leaked documents that revealed
widespread demographic engineering through the naturalizing of Sunni foreigners on the part of the Al Khalifa
regime, an event referred to as the Bandargate scandal.
Fatah, Hassan M. "Report Cites Bid by Sunnis in Bahrain to Rig Elections." New York Times (New York, NY), October
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29
Mashal, Mujib. "Pakistani Troops Aid Bahrain's Crackdown." Al Jazeera. last modified July 30, 2011. Accessed
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30
Bassiouni et. al.: 373.

31
Human Rights Watch. Migrant Worker Abuse in Bahrain and the Government Reform Agenda. Human Rights
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32
Gardner, Andrew. City of Strangers: Gulf Migration and the Indian Community in Bahrain. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
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33
Human Rights Watch. For a Better Life: Migrant Worker Abuse in Bahrain and the Government Reform Agenda.
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34
Bassiouni et. al.: 367-373.


35
Bassiouni et. al.: 197, 129.;

36
Bassiouni et. al.: 197, 371.;

37
BBC. "Bangladeshis Complain of Bahrain Rally 'Coercion.'" BBC News South Asia. last modified March 17, 2011.
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38


39
Chenoweth, Erica. "Backfire in the Arab Spring." Middle East Institute. last modified September 1, 2011.
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40
Barany, Zoltan. "The Role of the Military." Journal of Democracy 22, no. 4 (October 2011): 28-38.; Droz-Vincent,
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41
Enloe, Cynthia H. Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press,
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42


43


44


45


46
Aghazarm, Christine, Patrice Quesada, and Sarah Tishler. Migrants Caught in Crisis: The IOM Experience in Libya.
Geneva, Switzerland: International Organizaton for Migration, 2012: 18.

47


48


49
"Bahrain." In The Military Balance 2012, edited by John Chipman, 318-19. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Journals,
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Apparatus." Bahrain Center for Human Rights. last modified March 8, 2009. Accessed July 16, 2014.
http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2784.

50


51
Mazetti, Mark, and Emily B. Hager. "Secret Desert Force Set up by Blackwaters Founder." The New York Times
(New York, NY), May 14, 2011.

52
"Bahrain." In The Military Balance 2012, edited by John Chipman, 318-19. Abingdon, UK: Routledge Journals,
2012.

53
Inside Story. "UAE: Arming up with Mercenaries." Al Jazeera. July 16, 2014 (originally aired May 16, 2011).
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http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2011/05/201151711651701189.html.


54
Mazetti, Mark, and Emily B. Hager. "Secret Desert Force Set up by Blackwaters Founder." The New York Times
(New York, NY), May 14, 2011.