It looks like the “private navy to protect trade off Somalia” idea has been disinterred and taken for a walk again. As Galrahn points out, this is a little surprising as the pirates haven’t had a score since the 2nd March, 10 months ago. A combination of more use of armed security guards aboard ships,…
Read More mercenary vapourwareThe Libyan rebels are making progress, as well as robots. Some of them are reported to be within 40 miles of Tripoli, those being the ones who the French have been secretly arming, including with a number of light tanks. Now that’s what I call protecting civilians. They are also about to take over the…
Read More If you’re out of luck and out of work, we could send you to the western mountains of LibyaSultan al-Qassemi kicks in a data point to the ArseDex. Apparently Libyan agents are distributing flyers in Guinea and Nigeria calling for mercenaries to fight for $2,000 a day. Yesterday, loyalist thugs cost $500 a day in Libya. Even with the huge supply of potential thugs in sub-Saharan Africa’s demobilised militias being available, the ArseDex…
Read More the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead, so that son of a bitch Van Owen cut off Roland’s headThanks to reader Koranteng for this data point. You may recall this post about the market for thugs in Egyptian politics. Specifically, when the government needed arseholes to attack the protestors, it had to pay four times per capita GDP to get them. In Libya this week, it is said that the government is using…
Read More Market forces live: ArseDexHere’s something interesting. We must also consider the alternative that many of the most prominent and powerful Afghans are in fact motivated by greed and opportunism. [harrowell: ya think?] It is therefore in their interest to maintain the status quo of massive US and international spending that fuels the Afghan “rentier state” economy. This isn’t…
Read More cutting down on your mercenary milesSo, what if there was an airline that uses the Zimbabwean registry in order to get around most people’s idea of aviation safety, is almost certainly in cahoots with the Zimbabwean government, and was involved not just with running guns into the DRC in the late 90s but also with actual combat air missions, dropping…
Read More Avient, AgainRemember we wanted to know more about Asia Airways? This entity has solidified somewhat, and it now has a place of registry (Tajikistan, EY-) and some aeroplanes. There are four Il-76, registered EY-601 to 604, and three Antonov 12s, registered EY-401 to 403. Interestingly, all the aircraft we have any information on have been transferred…
Read More still crazy after all these yearsDouglas Farah reckons the Russians are trying to press the US State Department to press for Viktor Bout’s release, or rather his extradition to Russia, which would amount to the same thing. It’s an interesting suggestion, although usual caveats apply to a story sourced to Bill “WMD to Syria!!” Gertz. I can imagine them pitching…
Read More Even More Viktor Bout Arrest BloggingAndrew Smulian’s arrest with Viktor Bout is interesting in a couple of ways; first, there was the investigation itself, as previously blogged. Then, there’s the fact that he was clearly well embedded in the system, as far back as 1997. Context; the accounts for Air Pass, a South African company Bout reversed Air Cess into…
Read More Smulian: On the Payroll Since 1997kill lourens horn. Lourens Horn is a South African mercenary who figured in the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt, and this post, which is what the homicidal googler landed on. I’m really not sure what to make of this.
Read More Genuinely Disturbing Search Request