Video footage of the ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region shows Syrian mercenaries who joined the lines of Azerbaijani forces in combat against Armenian troops.
For a detailed examination of the video, please see below. The claim is supported by the following:
- The camouflage pattern worn by some of the fighters clearly matches that of Azerbaijani border guard troops. There have been reports that Syrian mercenaries are given these uniforms on their arrival to Azerbaijan.
- The two military vehicles appearing in the video (Turkish Otokar Cobra and Israeli AIL Storm) are in service of the Azerbaijani Army. The third is a civilian pickup vehicle widely used by Islamic fighters in Iraq and Syria and corroborated by reports that Azerbaijani authorities confiscating pickups from the civilian population weeks before the start of the war.
- Arabic speech in dialect common in Northern parts of Syria (Aleppo).
- The weather and vegetation don’t match Syria but that of Nagorno-Karabakh, especially the southern regions where heavy fighting was reported.
- Engagement tactics common to Islamic terrorist groups.
