While the most large-scaled military operations since 1994 cease-fire are going on in breakaway Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan, the confronting parties repeatedly accused each other on engaging foreign fighters into the region. Previously, CCBS has took on upon some of the fake news produced in line with the foreign fighters of Azerbaijan - “mercenaries narratives” as investigated by social media users and verified by our independent experts (see: Virtual life of Syrian Ghost Fighters in Karabakh. A social media users based investigation. Part 1).

 This time we have analyzed the claims and social media contents produced with regard to the “Armenia’s PKK mercenaries”.

First, it should be mentioned that despite of the fact that Armenia – PKK cooperation was frequently referred both, in Azerbaijani and Turkish media and social media in previous years, during the ongoing hostilities in Nagorno Karabakh this issue was raised only after the Armenian side and some media resources claimed that there are Syrian fighters involved in military operations by Azerbaijan. Thus, nowadays Armenia – PKK relations or cooperation seems to be bloated up as a counter campaign among the Azerbaijani social media users.

One of the first photo “proof” spread in the Azerbaijani segment of Twitter was the photos of PKK fighters with Armenian flag .

While making the relevant search on internet regarding these photos it appears that the date of the photos are earlier than the recent hostilities in Nagorno Karabakh has started. The photos belong to Martyr Nubar Ozanyan Brigade which is an Armenian military group in Syria and a part of the YPG led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). USA's Director of National Intelligence described YPG as the Syrian wing of PKK in its 2018 report. As the Armenian military group in Syria was founded in April 2019, it is assumed that the photos are older than one year and are not from the current war. In fact, despite of the reported activity of Armenians within the PKK, it is not verified whether PKK Kurdish militants or PKK Armenian brigade are deployed in Nagorno Karabakh to fight against Azerbaijani Armed Forces.

On 7 October 2020, the Syrian human rights defender Asaad Hanna posted on Twitter a photo of a group of Lebanese men fighting for Armenia against Azerbaijan.

The tweet became popular among the Azerbaijani users of social media, including Telegram channels claiming that fighters from Middle East terrorist organizations are involved in fights in Nagorno Karabakh. However, the mentioned tweet did not specify if they had an affiliation to any terrorist organization or if they were mercenaries. Based on the Asaad’s tweet we can only know that they are Lebanese citizens and fighting in Karabakh, but we could not independently verify if they are mercenaries or part of a specific terrorist organization.

In social media there were also photos with presumably Yezidi Kurdish fighters holding both, the flag of Armenia and Yezidis.

While it is not possible to fully confirm that if these fighters arrived from the Middle East, it is also obvious that many Azerbaijani social media users accept the Yezidi Kurdish fighters as the ones coming from the Middle Eastern countries although there is a small Yezidi minority living in Armenia.

The Government of Armenia in the highest level – through official calls made by President Sarkissian and Prime Minister Pashinyan invited Armenians living in other countries to come to Karabakh to fight against Azerbaijan. It is not clear how many Armenians positively reacted to this call, according to the Armenian social media users and telegram channels there are a lot of. Whereas, it is almost impossible to verify the exact number, ethnic background and motivation of all foreign fighters involved in active military operations by the side of Armenia. One of the Armenian Facebook pages shared the photo of a soldier posting “Our Syrian brother are with us” (photo 6). The same post was used by Azerbaijanis in social media as a proof of Syrian PKK fighters among the Armenian soldiers. However, it is noted that both sides are using different type of propaganda tools to encourage and spirit up their society. Taking into consideration the above mentioned official calls and the relevant pieces in Armenian media the main expectation of the Armenian society in the current situation is any help from abroad. Thus, it will not be possible to verify if the soldier in the photo came from Syria or it is just fake photo targeting the needs of domestic audience.

Expert Group of CCBS

31 October 2020 / 11:43