Date : 06 Dec 2024
What is Sadat the “Turkish Wagner” doing in the Sahel?
Russia's Africa Corps, formerly known as Wagner, is not the only private military company (PMC) operating in the Sahel. Sadat is also present, notably in the Sahel zone, where in less than a year it has deployed several hundred mercenaries to defend and protect Turkish interests. Only Turkish interests?
What is the Turkish SMP “Sadat”?
Uluslararası Savunma Danışmanlık Şirketi* (International Defense Consulting Company), known as Sadat, was founded in 2012 by Adnan Tanriverdi, former chief advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This PMC is now run by his son Melih Tanriverdi, since the former founder's death in August 2024. A latecomer to the world of PMCs, Sadat is nonetheless one of the most active in the world. It operates in an area stretching from Libya to Afghanist an, via the Caucasus, the Balkans and, more recently, the Sahel.
A veritable tool in the service of Turkish foreign and defense policy, it stands out for its operating methods and ideological line. Its existence is openly based on the need to “assist Muslim countries to take their place and play their role in the face of the world's superpowers”, to protect Turkish minorities scattered across different territories, and to protect Turkey's civilizational allies.
Since then, the Sahel region, destabilized by endemic terrorism and fragile security policies, has gradually seen a new contingent of Sadat-funded Syrian mercenaries move in, notably in Niger and Burkina Faso, to protect crucial economic sites such as uranium mines and oilfields where the Turkish government has shared interests.
Sadat, regarded by military experts as the “555th regiment of the Syrian army”, has trained members of a new private security force to protect General Assimi Goïta, head of the transitional government in Mali.
Sadat, a lever of influence
Officially, Sadat operates in 22 Muslim countries, offering security audits, operational and logistical support missions, and even the deployment of contract fighters to various entities (governments, militant organizations, etc.). According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Sadat has deployed 1,100 Syrian mercenaries trained in Turkey to Burkina Faso and Niger since September 2023.
International observers also point to a number of abuses, including connivance with terrorist groups close to the Muslim Brotherhood and the supply of arms to jihadist groups, in particular Al Nosra. It is important to remember that Sadat takes his name from the honorary title of the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.
Sadat's power also lies in his position as a true salesman for the Turkish Defense Industrial and Technological Base (DITB).Is he not the almost exclusive intermediary for the Bayraktar drones that fly over Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso? In Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Guinea, Sadat's shadow hangs over numerous military cooperation agreements.This breakthrough in Africa has been accentuated since the signing of the Turkey-Niger agreement in July 2020 to establish a Turkish military base in the country.
Talks are expected to conclude shortly.
In addition to assisting the Russians of Africa Corps, Sadat's mercenaries (a term rejected by Melih Tanriverdi) rely on a sister structure: the Association of Justice Defenders Strategic Studies Center (ASSAM) to influence their environment. Created by Adnan Tanriverdi, ASSAM's discourse is openly bellicose and anti-Western. ASSAM's vocation is the creation of Islamic Unity, a political organization whose order is based on the assumption that “Muslims are but brothers, in struggle like Western imperialism and exploitation.” . Sadat's presence in Africa in general, and in the Sahel in particular, is no accident. The PMC did not come to the continent to defend Turkish interests alone.