Armenian Court Files Confirm Turkey’s Pipeline for Deploying Jihadists to Artsakh, Libya

He was offered $2,000 a month to undergo military training and then travel to Azerbaijan to participate in the anticipated fighting against Armenian forces. Similar sums were also offered for Syrian jihadists who were transported to Libya to fight alongside the Libyan Islamist factions that were backed by Turkey in the post-Gaddafi period as well.

After accepting, al-Shkheri was taken to Sheikh Hadid in northern Syria, a stronghold associated with the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade. Armenian prosecutors said approximately 500 recruits underwent physical and military training there for three months.

A November 6, 2020, UN communication to the Turkish government raised concerns over allegations that Turkey recruited, financed and transported Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan for deployment in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The Armenian investigation placed recruitment and training months before the large-scale Azerbaijani offensive began on September 27, suggesting that the deployment was organized in advance rather than improvised after hostilities started.

On October 17, al-Shkheri and 17 other recruits were transported by truck to a crossing point where approximately 250 fighters had assembled. They were subsequently taken toward the Turkish border near Kilis.

Commanders from the Suqour and Hamza factions were also present, according to the indictment, and were operating under Abu Amsha’s authority. A commander identified as Colonel Mahmoud selected 250 men and divided them into five groups.

At about 11 p.m. the fighters crossed from Syria into Turkey. What followed is one of the most revealing allegations in the Armenian court record. Prosecutors said Turkish officials guarding the border did not request passports or other identification and knowingly allowed the entire group to cross.

That would mean Turkish border guards had been instructed to stand down and that the operation was being coordinated by MIT.

MIT also facilitated the movement of hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign fighters from around the world who traveled to Turkey and then crossed into Syria to join jihadist groups operating there.

On several occasions MIT’s clandestine activities were exposed, prompting local prosecutors in Turkey in 2014 to open terrorism investigations targeting intelligence officials over secret assistance to jihadist groups. Those investigations were abruptly shut down after intervention by President Erdogan, shielding MIT personnel from potential prosecution over serios allegations that they had aided and abetted designated terrorist organizations.

Similar methods were apparently used in 2020 to move jihadist fighters to Azerbaijan for deployment against Armenian forces. The Armenian indictment therefore portrayed the Turkish state not merely as having failed to detect the clandestine movement of armed men across its territory but as actively facilitating and enabling the operation.

Once inside Turkey, the 250 Syrians were transported between civilian airports aboard aircraft bearing the Turkish flag, according to the case file. At the second airport they were allegedly met by about 50 Turkish military personnel. Under Turkish military escort, the fighters then boarded an aircraft displaying the Azerbaijani flag and flew to Azerbaijan on the morning of October 18, 2020.

There, more than 30 Azerbaijani servicemen allegedly met the recruits and transported them to a military installation. During the following seven days, Armenian prosecutors alleged, Abu Amsha participated in repeated discussions with Turkish and Azerbaijani military personnel concerning the upcoming combat operations. The Syrian fighters were given Azerbaijani military uniforms and weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles, PKS machine guns and RPG anti-tank grenade launchers.

The second defendant, Yousef Alaabet al-Hajji, was fed through much the same pipeline. His recruiter was identified as Ibrahim Rab al-Ayal, known as Abu Ahmad, from the Jisr al-Shughur area of Syria’s Idlib Province. Al-Hajji also underwent training at Sheikh Hadid along with hundreds of other prospective fighters.

On September 25, 2020 — two days before the outbreak of the war — he was taken to the Bab al-Salam crossing in northern Syria. There, according to the court record, Abu Amsha’s brother, identified as Seif, selected approximately 500 Syrian men between the ages of 20 and 40 and told them they would receive $2,000 a month.

The 500 men then crossed into Turkey without Turkish border officers requesting passports or identification documents, prosecutors alleged.

According to al-Hajji’s testimony, the bus journey from the Turkish-Syrian border to a Turkish airport took approximately two-and-a-half hours, suggesting that the fighters may have boarded their flight at Gaziantep Oğuzeli International Airport (GZT). They were eventually transported to Azerbaijan, where each fighter was photographed, issued an individual identification tag and provided with an Azerbaijani uniform, weapons and ammunition.

The Armenian allegations did not emerge in isolation. While the 2020 war was still underway, United Nations special rapporteurs formally confronted the Turkish government with reports of substantially the same system.

In a November 6, 2020, communication to Ankara, UN experts said they had received information concerning Turkey’s involvement in recruiting Syrian fighters for deployment to Azerbaijan and specifically named the Hamza Division, Sultan Murad Division, Al-Amshat faction and Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade.

According to the information received by the UN experts, recruitment began in August 2020 in war-ravaged Syria.

A related UN communication to Azerbaijan said an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Syrian fighters had been deployed by late September 2020, with more under recruitment. It said their recruitment, payment and transfer had reportedly been undertaken by Turkey.

As expected, Turkey rejected the UN allegations. In its January 2021 response, Ankara called the allegations “unfounded,” “baseless” and based on Armenian disinformation. Azerbaijan likewise denied allegations that it had relied on foreign mercenaries.

The Armenian court documents therefore represent one side of a highly contested interstate conflict. Yet the details contained in the criminal file substantially overlap with information independently collected by UN special procedures while the fighting was taking place.

The deployment to Azerbaijan was also not the first time Turkey had been accused by the UN of moving Syrian fighters to another country to pursue Ankara’s strategic objectives. Months earlier, UN experts had confronted Turkey over the recruitment and deployment of Syrian fighters to Libya.

A June 10, 2020, UN special procedures communication said information had been received alleging that Turkey recruited, deployed and paid fighters, including children, from several Syrian armed groups to participate in military operations around Tripoli on behalf of Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Accord.

Most strikingly, Abu Amsha himself provides a direct personnel link between the two theaters. In August 2023 the US Treasury Department sanctioned Abu Amsha, his Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division for serious human rights abuses in northern Syria.

Treasury said the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade had engaged in abductions, extortion and forced displacement, particularly against Kurdish residents of Afrin. The US government also noted that Abu Amsha’s brother Walid Hussein al-Jasim took command of the brigade when Abu Amsha left Syria to fight in Libya.

The same US sanctions notice revealed another important Turkish connection: Abu Amsha owned Al-Safir Oto, an automobile dealership headquartered in Istanbul with locations in southern Turkey operated by commanders of the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade. Treasury described the company as an outlet through which Abu Amsha invested income generated by his militia activities.

The picture that emerges is therefore of a militia leader operating inside Turkish-backed Syrian security architecture, maintaining business interests in Turkey, fighting in Libya and later appearing in an Armenian criminal case as the principal organizer of Syrians sent through Turkey to Azerbaijan.

Turkey’s cultivation of Syrian armed groups dates to the uprising against then-president Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Ankara became one of the most important foreign sponsors of the Syrian opposition and eventually assembled a large number of factions under the umbrella of what became known as the Syrian National Army.

Those groups served Turkish objectives inside Syria, particularly during Turkish military operations that established Ankara-backed zones along the border and displaced Kurdish-led forces from areas Turkey considered strategically important.

Over time, however, the fighters also acquired a value beyond Syria. The Libya and Azerbaijan deployments demonstrated how forces originally cultivated for the Syrian conflict could function as an expeditionary proxy pool.

The system offered several advantages. Local commanders handled recruitment. Desperate economic conditions supplied willing manpower. Turkish-controlled territory in northern Syria provided staging areas. Turkey provided access to transport infrastructure, funding and arms. Fighters could then be integrated with allied local forces while Ankara maintained a formal distance from their battlefield conduct.

That structure also reduced the political cost of sending larger numbers of Turkish soldiers into foreign conflicts. The Armenian files provide a rare courtroom-level reconstruction of how such a system functioned in practice.

In al-Hajji’s case, prosecutors alleged that the recruits were promised a $100 bonus for presenting the severed head of an Armenian and were supplied with long-bladed knives. The indictment further alleged that groups of fighters were ordered to attack Armenian villages, kill civilians and soldiers and carry out arson and explosions designed to terrorize the population.

Al-Shkheri was captured after fighting near settlements in Armenia’s Syunik Province, while al-Hajji was captured near Davit Bek, also in Syunik, according to the Armenian file. That detail means the case was not limited to allegations concerning fighting inside internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory. Armenian prosecutors alleged that operations involving the Syrian fighters extended toward sovereign Armenian territory as well.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee completed its investigation in April 2021. It charged both men with offenses including terrorism committed by an organized group, international terrorism, attempted serious violations of international humanitarian law and mercenary activity. The Investigative Committee said its evidence established that the Syrians were not Azerbaijani citizens or residents and had joined the war for financial compensation as members of an organized group.

The case was sent to the Syunik Provincial Court and assigned to Judge Napoleon Ohanyan. On May 4, 2021, the court sentenced both defendants to life in prison. The defendants’ public defender, Mushegh Vardanyan, said the two admitted that they had been hired as mercenaries but denied committing war crimes.

Armenia initially treated the two Syrian fighters as criminal defendants rather than prisoners of war. In December 2020 the Armenian Investigative Committee said they were not eligible for release or exchange under post-war prisoner arrangements with Azerbaijan. That position appeared to shift five years later. In September 2025 Armenian media, citing an unnamed source, reported that Azerbaijan had asked Armenia to release the two Syrians as part of discussions concerning Armenian detainees held in Baku. The report was never officially confirmed.

On January 14, 2026, Armenia transferred the two men through Turkey to Syrian authorities, officially so they could continue serving their Armenian life sentences in Syria. On the same day, Azerbaijan released four Armenian detainees to Armenia, fueling speculation that the two moves were connected.

Armenia’s Ministry of Justice announced that the two Syrian nationals had been handed to Syrian authorities “via the Republic of Turkey” under cooperation between the relevant authorities and existing legal mechanisms. Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan later said the transfer was based on the principle of reciprocity and was intended in part to improve relations with Syria and help protect the interests of the Armenian community there.

She acknowledged that other routes had been considered before Armenia decided to move the prisoners through Turkey. Hetq, a Yerevan-based Armenian investigative news outlet, subsequently reported that the Armenian Justice Ministry did not confirm that it had obtained guarantees that the two men would actually remain incarcerated and continue serving their Armenian life sentences after their transfer to Syria.

Taken together, the Armenian judicial record, UN communications and subsequent US sanctions material add to a substantial body of evidence showing how Erdogan’s government turned armed Syrian factions into instruments of Turkish regional policy.