title: Mercenary

text: The private military company (PMC) is the contemporary strand of the mercenary trade, providing logistics, soldiers, military training, and other services. Thus, PMC contractors are civilians (in governmental, international, and civil organizations) authorized to accompany an army to the field; hence, the term "civilian contractor". Nevertheless, PMCs may use armed force, hence defined as: "legally established enterprises that make a profit, by either providing services involving the potential exercise of [armed] force in a systematic way and by military means, and/or by the transfer of that potential to clients through training and other practices, such as logistics support, equipment procurement, and intelligence gathering".


title: Mercenary

text: Private paramilitary forces are functionally mercenary armies, though they may serve as security guards or military advisors; however, national governments reserve the right to control the number, nature, and armaments of such private armies, arguing that, provided they are not pro-actively employed in front-line combat, they are not mercenaries. That said, PMC "civilian contractors" have poor repute among professional government soldiers and officers—the U.S. Military Command have questioned their war zone behavior. In September 2005, Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the Third Infantry Division charged with Baghdad security after the 2003 invasion, said of DynCorp and other PMCs in Iraq: "These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force ... They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place." Speaking of the use of American PMCs in Colombia, the former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette has said: "Congress and the American people don't want any servicemen killed overseas. So it makes sense that if contractors want to risk their lives, they get the job".


title: Mercenary

text: In Afghanistan, the United States has made extensive use of the PMCs since 2001, mostly in a defensive role. PMC teams have been used to guard bases and to protect VIPs from Taliban assassins, but almost never in offensive operations. One mercenary stated about his work in Afghanistan: "We are there purely to protect the principals and get them out, we're not there to get into huge firefights with the bad guys". One team from the DynCorp International provided the bodyguards to President Hamid Karzai.


title: Mercenary

text: If PMC employees participate in proactive combat, the press calls them 'mercenaries', and the PMCs 'mercenary companies'. In the 1990s, the media identified four mercenary companies:


title: Mercenary

text: In 2004 the PMC business was boosted when the U.S. and Coalition governments hired them for security in Iraq. In March 2004, four Blackwater USA employees escorting food supplies and other equipment were attacked and killed in Fallujah, in a videotaped attack; the killings and subsequent dismemberments were a cause for the First Battle of Fallujah. Afghan war operations also boosted the business.


title: Mercenary

text: In 2006, a U.S. congressional report listed a number of PMCs and other enterprises that have signed contracts to carry out anti-narcotics operations and related activities as part of Plan Colombia. DynCorp was among those contracted by the State Department, while others signed contracts with the Defense Department. Other companies from different countries, including Israel, have also signed contracts with the Colombian Defense Ministry to carry out security or military activities. A disproportionate number of the mercenaries with the PMCs today are Colombian, as Colombia's long history of civil war has led to a surplus of experienced soldiers while Colombians are much cheaper than soldiers from the First World.


title: Mercenary

text: The United Nations disapproves of PMCs. The question is whether or not PMC soldiers are as accountable for their war zone actions. A common argument for using PMCs (used by the PMCs themselves), is that PMCs may be able to help combat genocide and civilian slaughter where the UN or other countries are unwilling or unable to intervene.


title: Mercenary

text: In February 2002, a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) report about PMCs noted that the demands of the military service from the UN and international civil organizations might mean that it is cheaper to pay PMCs than use soldiers. Yet, after considering using PMCs to support UN operations, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, decided against it.


title: Mercenary

text: In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study that stated, that although hired as "security guards", private contractors were performing military duties. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law. Many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are not signatories to the 1989 United Nations Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries. A spokesman for the U.S. Mission to U.N. denied that Blackwater security guards were mercenaries, saying "Accusations that U.S. government-contracted security guards, of whatever nationality, are mercenaries is inaccurate and demeaning to men and women who put their lives on the line to protect people and facilities every day."


title: Mercenary

text: Tamil poems described the Greek soldiers who served as mercenaries for Indian kings as: "The valiant-eyed Yavanas (Greeks), whose bodies were strong and of terrible aspect".


title: Mercenary

text: Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher said that some of the troops of Mara in the Gandhara sculptures may represent Greek mercenaries.


title: Mercenary

text: Stephanus of Byzantium wrote about a city called Daedala or Daidala () in India, which he called Indo-Cretan, most probably because it was a settlement of Cretan mercenaries.


title: Mercenary

text: In the late Roman Empire, it became increasingly difficult for Emperors and generals to raise military units from the citizenry for various reasons: lack of manpower, lack of time available for training, lack of materials, and, inevitably, political considerations. Therefore, beginning in the late 4th century, the empire often contracted whole bands of barbarians either within the legions or as autonomous foederati. The barbarians were Romanized and surviving veterans were established in areas requiring population. The Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire is the best known formation made up of barbarian mercenaries (see next section).


title: Mercenary

text: Byzantine Emperors followed the Roman practice and contracted foreigners especially for their personal corps guard called the Varangian Guard. They were chosen among war-prone peoples, of whom the Varangians (Norsemen) were preferred. Their mission was to protect the Emperor and Empire and since they did not have links to the Greeks, they were expected to be ready to suppress rebellions. One of the most famous guards was the future king Harald III of Norway, also known as Harald Hardrada ("Hard-counsel"), who arrived in Constantinople in 1035 and was employed as a Varangian Guard. He participated in eighteen battles and was promoted to , the commander of the Guard, before returning home in 1043. He was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 when his army was defeated by an English army commanded by King Harold Godwinson.


title: Mercenary

text: In England at the time of the Norman Conquest, Flemings (natives of Flanders) formed a substantial mercenary element in the forces of William the Conqueror with many remaining in England as settlers under the Normans. Contingents of mercenary Flemish soldiers were to form significant forces in England throughout the time of the Norman and early Plantagenet dynasties (11th and 12th centuries). A prominent example of these were the Flemings who fought during the English civil wars, known as the Anarchy or the Nineteen-Year Winter (AD 1135 to 1154), under the command of William of Ypres, who was King Stephen's chief lieutenant from 1139 to 1154 and who was made Earl of Kent by Stephen.


title: Mercenary

text: In Italy, the was a military chief offering his troops, the , to Italian city-states. The were extensively used by the Italian city-states in their wars against one another. At times, the seized control of the state, as one , Francesco Sforza, made himself the Duke of Milan in 1450. During the ages of the Taifa kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, Christian knights like El Cid could fight for a Muslim ruler against his Christian or Muslim enemies. The Almogavars originally fought for the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon, but as the Catalan Company, they followed Roger de Flor in the service of the Byzantine Empire. In 1311, the Catalan Great Company defeated at the Battle of Halmyros their former employer, Walter V, Count of Brienne, after he refused to pay them, and took over the Duchy of Athens. The Great Company ruled much of central and southern Greece until 1388–1390 when a rival mercenary company, the Navarrese Company were hired to oust them. Catalan and German mercenaries also had prominent role in the Serbian victory over Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbuzd in 1330.


title: Mercenary

text: During the later Middle Ages, Free Companies (or "Free Lances") were formed, consisting of companies of mercenary troops. Nation-states lacked the funds needed to maintain standing forces, so they tended to hire free companies to serve in their armies during wartime. Such companies typically formed at the ends of periods of conflict, when men-at-arms were no longer needed by their respective governments. The veteran soldiers thus looked for other forms of employment, often becoming mercenaries. Free Companies would often specialize in forms of combat that required longer periods of training that was not available in the form of a mobilized militia.


title: Mercenary

text: The formed a distinctive subculture in medieval France who alternated between serving as mercenaries in wartime and bandits in peacetime. The were very destructive and became a significant social problem. After the Treaty of Brétigny ended the war between England and France in 1360, the French countryside was overrun by Free Companies of while the French Crown lacked the necessary military and economic strength to put an end to their activities. To rid France of the rampaging mercenaries and to overthrow the pro-English King Pedro the Cruel of Castile, Marshal Bertrand du Guesclin was directed by King Charles V of France to take the Free Companies into Castile with the orders to put the pro-French Enrique de Trastámara on the Castilian throne. Guesclin's mercanaries were organized into the Big Companies and French Companies and placed a decisive role in putting Enrique on the Castilian throne in 1369, who styled himself King Enrique II, the first Castilian monarch of the House of Trastámara.


title: Mercenary

text: The White Company commanded by Sir John Hawkwood is the best known English Free Company of the 14th century. Between the 13th and 17th centuries the Gallowglass fought within the Islands of Britain and also mainland Europe. A Welshman Owain Lawgoch (Owain of the Red Hand) formed a free company and fought for the French against the English during the Hundred Years' War, before being assassinated by a Scot named Jon Lamb, under the orders of the English Crown, during the siege of Mortagne in 1378.


title: Mercenary

text: Swiss mercenaries were sought during the late 15th and early 16th centuries as being an effective fighting force, until their somewhat rigid battle formations became vulnerable to arquebuses and artillery being developed at the same time. The Swiss Guard in particular were employed by the Papal States from 1506 (continuing to serve today as the military of Vatican City).


title: Mercenary

text: It was then that the German landsknechts, colourful mercenaries with a redoubtable reputation, took over the Swiss forces' legacy and became the most formidable force of the late 15th and throughout the 16th century, being hired by all the powers in Europe and often fighting at opposite sides. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia advocated the use of mercenaries in preference to citizens. The barbarian mercenaries employed by the Utopians are thought to be inspired by the Swiss mercenaries.


title: Mercenary

text: A class of mercenaries known as the Gallowglass dominated warfare in Ireland and Scotland between the 13th and 16th centuries. They were a heavily armed and armored elite force that often doubled as a chieftain's bodyguard.


title: Mercenary

text: At approximately the same period, Niccolò Machiavelli argued against the use of mercenary armies in his book of political advice "The Prince". His rationale was that since the sole motivation of mercenaries is their pay, they will not be inclined to take the kind of risks that can turn the tide of a battle, but may cost them their lives. He also noted that a mercenary who failed was obviously no good, but one who succeeded may be even more dangerous. He astutely pointed out that a successful mercenary army no longer needs its employer if it is more militarily powerful than its supposed superior. This explained the frequent, violent betrayals that characterized mercenary/client relations in Italy, because neither side trusted the other. He believed that citizens with a real attachment to their home country will be more motivated to defend it and thus make much better soldiers.


title: Mercenary

text: The Stratioti or Stradioti (Italian: Stradioti or Stradiotti; Greek: Στρατιώτες, Stratiotes) were mercenary units from the Balkans recruited mainly by states of southern and central Europe from the 15th until the middle of the 18th century. The stradioti were recruited in Albania, Greece, Dalmatia, Serbia and later Cyprus. Most modern historians have indicated that the Stratioti were mostly Albanians. According to a study by a Greek author, around 80% of the listed names attributed to the stradioti were of Albanian origin while most of the remaining ones, especially those of officers, were of Greek origin; a small minority were of South Slavic origin. Among their leaders there were also members of some old Byzantine Greek noble families such as the Palaiologoi and Comneni.


title: Mercenary

text: The stratioti were pioneers of light cavalry tactics during this era. In the early 16th century heavy cavalry in the European armies was principally remodeled after Albanian stradioti of the Venetian army, Hungarian hussars and German mercenary cavalry units (Schwarzreitern). They employed hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, feigned retreats and other complex maneuvers. In some ways, these tactics echoed those of the Ottoman sipahis and akinci. They had some notable successes also against French heavy cavalry during the Italian Wars.


title: Mercenary

text: They were known for cutting off the heads of dead or captured enemies, and according to Commines they were paid by their leaders one ducat per head.


title: Mercenary

text: In Italy, during inter-family conflicts such as the Wars of Castro, mercenaries were widely used to supplement the much smaller forces loyal to particular families. Often these were further supplemented by troops loyal to particular "duchies" which had sided with one or more of the belligerents.


title: Mercenary

text: During the 17th and 18th century extensive use was made of foreign recruits in the now regimented and highly drilled armies of Europe, beginning in a systematized way with the Thirty Years' War. Historian Geoffrey Parker notes that 40,000 Scotsmen (about fifteen percent of the adult male population) served as soldiers in Continental Europe from 1618 to 1640.


title: Mercenary

text: After the signing of the Treaty of Limerick (1691) the soldiers of the Irish Army who left Ireland for France took part in what is known as the "Flight of the Wild Geese". Subsequently, many made a living from fighting in continental armies, the most famous of whom was Patrick Sarsfield, who, having fallen mortally wounded at the Battle of Landen fighting for the French, said "If this was only for Ireland".


title: Mercenary

text: The brutality of the Thirty Years' War, in which several parts of Germany were ransacked by the mercenary troops, and left almost unpopulated, led to the formation of standing armies of professional soldiers, recruited locally or abroad. These armies were active also in peacetime. The formation of these armies in the late 18th century led to professionalization and standardization of clothing (uniforms), equipment, drill, weapons, etc. Since smaller states like the Dutch Republic could afford a large standing army, but could not find enough recruits among its own citizens, recruiting foreigners was common. Prussia had developed a form of conscription, but relied in wartime also on foreign recruits, although the regulations stated that no more than one third of the recruits were to be foreign. Prussian recruiting methods were often aggressive, and resulted more than once in conflicts with neighbouring states. The term mercenary gained its notoriety during this development, since mercenaries were—and now are—often seen as soldiers who fight for no noble cause, but only for money, and who have no loyalty than to the highest bidder, as opposed to the professional soldiers who takes an oath of loyalty and who is seen as the defender of the nation.


title: Mercenary

text: The mercenary soldiers thus fell out of favour and was replaced by the professional soldier. To augment the army, major European powers like France, Britain, the Dutch Republic and Spain contracted regiments from Switzerland, the Southern Netherlands (modern day Belgium), and several smaller German states. About a third of the infantry regiments of the French Royal Army prior to the French Revolution were recruited from outside France. The largest single group were the twelve Swiss regiments (including the Swiss Guard). Other units were German and one Irish Brigade (the "Wild Geese") had originally been made up of Irish volunteers. By 1789 difficulties in obtaining genuinely Irish recruits had led to German and other foreigners making up the bulk of the rank and file. The officers however continued to be drawn from long established Franco-Irish families. During the reign of Louis XV there was also a Scottish (), a Swedish (), an Italian () and a Walloon () regiment recruited outside the borders of France. The foreign infantry regiments comprised about 20,000 men in 1733, rising to 48,000 at the time of the Seven Years' War and being reduced in numbers thereafter.


title: Mercenary

text: The Dutch Republic had contracted several Scots, Swiss and German regiments in the early 18th century, and kept three Scots, one Walloon, and six Swiss regiments (including a Guard regiment raised in 1749) throughout the 18th century. The Scots regiments were contracted from Great Britain, but as relations between Britain and the Republic deteriorated, the regiments could no longer recruit in Scotland, leading to the regiments being Scots in name only until they were nationalized in 1784. Patrick Gordon, a Scottish mercenary fought at various times for Poland and Sweden, constantly changing his loyalty based on who could pay him the best, until he took up Russian service in 1661. In August 1689, during a coup d'état attempt in Moscow against co-tsar Peter the Great led by the Sophia Alekseyevna in the name of the other co-tsar, the intellectually disabled Ivan V, Gordon played the decisive role in defeating the coup and ensuring Peter's triumph. Gordon remained one of Peter's favorite advisers until his death.


title: Mercenary

text: The Spanish Army also made use of permanently established foreign regiments. These were three Irish regiments (Irlanda, Hiberni and Ultonia); one Italian (Naples) and five Swiss (Wimpssen, Reding, Betschart, Traxer and Preux). In addition one regiment of the Royal Guard including Irishmen as "Patten", "McDonnell" and "Neiven", was recruited from Walloons. The last of these foreign regiments was disbanded in 1815, following recruiting difficulties during the Napoleonic Wars. One complication arising from the use of non-national troops occurred at the Battle of Bailén in 1808 when the "red Swiss" (so-called from their uniforms) of the invading French Army clashed bloodily with "blue Swiss" in the Spanish service.


title: Mercenary

text: During the American Revolution, the British government hired several regiments from German principalities to supplement the Army. They became known to revolutionaries as Hessians and were portrayed by propagandists as mercenaries. However, they were auxiliaries and do not meet the definition of mercenary.


title: Mercenary

text: During the South American wars of independence from Spain, the British Legions from 1817 onward fought for General Simón Bolívar. Some of the British Legionaries were liberal idealists who went to South America to fight in a war for freedom, but others were the more classic mercenaries, mostly unemployed veterans of the Napoleonic wars, who fought for money. In South America, especially in Colombia, the men of the British Legions are remembered as heroes for their crucial role in helping end Spanish rule. During the First Carlist War, the British government suspended the Foreign Enlistment Act to allow the recruitment of a quasi-official British Auxiliary Legion under George de Lacy Evans, which went to Spain to fight for Queen Isabel II against the followers of Don Carlos, the pretender to the Spanish throne.


title: Mercenary

text: The Atholl Highlanders, a private Scottish infantry regiment of the Duke of Atholl, was formed in 1839 purely for ceremonial purposes. It was granted official regimental status by Queen Victoria in 1845 and is the only remaining legal private army in Europe.


title: Mercenary

text: Russia has deployed Wagner Group mercenaries in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, Syrian mercenaries are being deployed by Russia, with expected numbers ranging from hundreds to up to 40,000 fighters ultimately expected to take part.


title: Mercenary

text: Mercenaries were regularly used by the kingdoms of the Warring States period of China. Military advisers and generals trained through the works of Mozi and Sun Tzu would regularly offer their services to kings and dukes.


title: Mercenary

text: After the Qin conquest of the Warring States, the Qin and later Han Empires would also employ mercenaries – ranging from nomadic horse archers in the Northern steppes or soldiers from the Yue kingdoms of the South. The 7th century Tang Dynasty was also prominent for its use of mercenaries, when they hired Tibetan and Uyghur soldiers against invasion from the Göktürks and other steppe civilizations.


title: Mercenary

text: The Saika mercenary group of the Kii Province, Japan, played a significant role during the Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji that took place between August 1570 to August 1580. The Saikashuu were famed for the support of Ikkō Buddhist sect movements and greatly impeded the advance of Oda Nobunaga's forces.


title: Mercenary

text: Ninja were peasant farmers who learned the art of war to combat the "daimyō"s samurai. They were hired out by many as mercenaries to perform capture, infiltration and retrieval, and, most famously, assassinations. Ninja possibly originated around the 14th century, but were not widely known or used till the 15th century and carried on being hired till the mid 18th century. In the 16th-17th centuries, the Spanish in the Philippines employed samurai mercenaries from Japan to help control the archipelago. Abroad the wreck of one Spanish galleon, the "San Diego", that sunk in Filipino waters on 14 December 1600 were found numerous "tsubas", the handguards of the "katanas", the distinctive swords used by the samurai.


title: Mercenary

text: Between 1850 and 1864, the Taiping Rebellion raged as the Taiping (Heavenly Peace) Army led by Hong Xiuquan, the deranged self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ, engaged in a bloody civil war against the forces loyal to the Qing emperor. As Hong and his followers, who numbered in the millions, were hostile to Western business interests, a group of Western merchants based in Shanghai created a mercenary army known as the Ever Victorious Army. During the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing came close to losing control of China. It was common for the financially hard-pressed Qing emperors to subcontract out the business of raising armies to fight the Taiping to the loyalist provincial gentry, which formed the origins of the warlords who were to dominate China after the overthrow of the Qing in 1912.


title: Mercenary

text: The rank and file of the Ever-Victorious Army were Chinese, but the senior officers were Westerners. The first commander was an American adventurer, Colonel Frederick Townsend Ward. After Ward was killed in action in 1862, command was assumed by another American adventurer, Henry Andres Burgevine, but the Chinese disliked him on the account of his racism and his alcoholism. Burgevine was replaced with a British Army officer seconded to Chinese service, Colonel Charles "Chinese" Gordon. The mercenaries of the Ever Victorious Army, comprising some of the worse social elements of the nations it recruited from, were notorious for their practice whenever they marched into a new district of stealing everything while raping all of the women, which led Gordon to impose harsh discipline, with those soldiers accused of looting and/or rape being arrested and executed.


title: Mercenary

text: A highly successful commander, Gordon won thirty-three battles in succession against the Taipings in 1863–1864 as he led the Ever Victorious Army down the Yangtze river valley and played a decisive role in defeating the Taipings. Through technically not a mercenary as Gordon had been assigned by the British government to lead the Ever Victorious Army, the "Times" of London in a leader (editorial) in August 1864 declared: "the part of the soldier of fortune is in these days very difficult to play with honour...but if ever the actions of a soldier fighting in foreign service ought to be viewed with indulgence, and even with admiration, this exceptional tribute is due to Colonel Gordon".


title: Mercenary

text: During the French conquest of Vietnam, their most persistent and stubborn opponents were not the Vietnamese, but rather the Chinese mercenaries of the Black Flag Army commanded by Liu Yongfu, who been hired by the Emperor Tự Đức. In 1873, the Black Flags killed the French commander, Francis Garnier, attracting much attention in France. In 1883, Captain Henri Rivière, leading another French expedition into Vietnam was also killed by the Black Flags. When the French conquest of Vietnam was finally completed in 1885, one of the peace terms were the disbandment of the Black Flag Army.


title: Mercenary

text: In the warlord period of China, many American and British mercenaries thrived such as Homer Lea, Philo Norton McGriffin, Morris "Two Gun" Cohen, and Francis Arthur "One Armed" Sutton.


title: Mercenary

text: Easily the largest group of mercenaries in China were the Russian emigres who arrived after 1917 and who hired themselves out to various Chinese warlords in the 1920s. Unlike the Anglo-American mercenaries, the Russians had no home to return to nor were any foreign nations willing to accept them as refugees, causing them to have a grim, fatalistic outlook as they were trapped in what they regarded as a strange land that was as far from home as imaginable. One group of Russian mercenaries led by General Konstantin Petrovich Nechaev were dressed in the uniform of Imperial Russian Army and fought for General Zhang Zongchang, the "Dogmeat General" who ruled Shangdong province. Nechaev and his men were infamous for their ruthlessness, and on one occasion in 1926, rode three armored trains through the Chinese countryside, killing everybody they met. When the Chinese peasants tore up the rails to stop Nechaev's rampage, he and his men vented their fury by sacking in an especially brutal manner the nearest town. Another group of Russians wore Tartar hats and the traditional dark greycoats, and fought for Marshal Zhang Zuolin, the "Old Marshal" who ruled Manchuria. The Russian mercenaries had considerable effectiveness against the ill-trained armies of the Chinese warlords; one contemporary mentioned that how Marshal Zhang's Russians "went through the Chinese troops like a knife through butter".


title: Mercenary

text: During the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a number of foreign pilots served in the Chinese Air Force, most famously in the 14th Squadron, a light bombardment unit often called the International Squadron, which was briefly active in February and March 1938.


title: Mercenary

text: In the medieval period, Purbiya mercenaries from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh were a common feature in Kingdoms in Western and Northern India.They were also later recruited by the Marathas and the British.In southern India, there is a caste/community of mercenaries in the state of Karnataka which is called Bunt. The word "bunt" itself translates to Warrior/Mercenary, this community later elevated itself as the rulers of the land, several powerful dynasties emerged from this community, The most notable dynasty being the Alupas of Dakshina Kannada, which reigned for 1300 years straight, This community still survives and has adopted the surnames shetty, Rai, Alva, chowta etc. In down south Tamil Nadu the three crowned empires used Kongar pastro-peasantry tribes of Kongunad region and Kongar peasant tribes of Erumainad region as their sword man mercenaries or as cavalry mercenaries or as chariot soldier mercenaries and also recruited as personal guards. Kongars worked along with the three empires warrior tribes such as Kallar, Maravar, Aghamudaiyar, Parkavar, Valaiya-Mutharaiyar, and Mazhavar tribes. But during the time of action these kongar tribes were led only by the chiefs of their own tribe and would not come under the command of the emperor or his military general. Though these Kongar tribes of Kongunad were feudatories to the three crowned empires, Kongunad was divided into 24 sub divisions and was only ruled by Kongars. But the Kongars (Gangars) of Erumainad established their own empire, the Western Ganga dynasty, and ruled over it for centuries. Kongar tribes still exist in modern days; they are referred as Kongu Vellala Gounder (Kongunadu) and Gangadhikar Vokkaliga Gowda (Erumainad).


title: Mercenary

text: The Mukkuvar clan of Malabar Coast and Sri Lankan coast did the role of soldiers in Kalinga Magha's invasion to Sri Lanka and in Nair's battle with the Dutch in the Battle of Colachel.


title: Mercenary

text: In 18th and early 19th centuries, the imperial Mughal power was crumbling and other powers, including the Sikh Misls and Maratha chiefs, were emerging. At this time, a number of mercenaries, arriving from several countries found employment in India. Some of the mercenaries emerged to become independent rulers. The Sikh Maharaja, Ranjit Singh, known as the "Lion of the Punjab", employed Euro-American mercenaries such as the Neapolitan Paolo Avitabile; the Frenchmen Claude Auguste Court and Jean-François Allard; and the Americans Josiah Harlan and Alexander Gardner. The Sikh army, "Dal Khalsa", was trained by Singh's French mercenaries to fight alone the lines used by the French in the Napoleonic era, and following French practice, "Dal Khalsa" had excellent artillery. Singh had a low opinion of his Euro-American mercenaries, once saying "German, French or English, all these European bastards are alike".


title: Mercenary

text: Until 1858, India was a proprietary colony that belonged to the East India Company, not the British Crown. The East India Company became the world's most influential corporation, having exclusive monopolies on trade with India and China. By the early 19th century, the East India Company in its proprietary colony of India ruled over 90 million Indians and controlled of land under its own flag, issued its own currency and maintained its own civil service and its own army of 200,000 men led by officers trained at its officer school, giving the company an army larger than that possessed by most European states. In the 17th century, the East India Company recruited Indian mercenaries to guard its warehouses and police the cities under its rule. However, these forces were ad hoc and disbanded as quickly as they were recruited.


title: Mercenary

text: Starting in 1746, the Company recruited Indian mercenaries into its own army. By 1765, the board of directors of the Company had come to accept it was necessary to rule its conquests to maintain a standing army, voting to maintain three presidency armies to be funded by taxes on Indian land. The number of Indians working for the Company's armies outnumbered the Europeans ten to one. When recruiting, the East India Company tended to follow Indian prejudices in believing the pale-skinned men from northern India made for better soldiers than the dark-skinned peoples of southern India, and that high-caste Hindus were superior to the low-caste Hindus. Despite these prejudices, the men of the Madras Army were from south India. The Bengal Army were largely high-cast Hindus from northern India while the Bombay Army prided itself on being a "melting pot".


title: Mercenary

text: Because the East India Company ultimately by the end of the 18th century came to offer higher pay than the Maharajahs did, and offered the novelty in India of paying a pension to veterans and their families, it came to attract the best of the Indian mercenaries. Initially, the mercenaries serving in the company's armies brought along their own weapons, which was the normal practice in India, but after the 1760s the company began to them arm with the standard British weapons. The East India Company, generally known in both Britain and in India as "the Company", had sufficient lobbying power in London to ensure that several British Army regiments were also stationed to work alongside the Company army, whose troops were mostly "Sepoys" (Indians). The Company never entirely trusted the loyalty of its sepoys. The company had its own officer training school at the Addiscombe Military Seminary. The company's armies were trained in the Western style and by the end of the 18th century its troops were ranked as the equal of any European army.


title: Mercenary

text: In 1855, during a civil war in Nicaragua between the Conservatives and Liberals, the latter recruited an American adventurer named William Walker who promised to bring 300 mercenaries to fight for the Liberals. Through Walker only brought 60 mercenaries with him, to be joined by another 100 Americans together with the Belgian mercenary Charles Frederick Henningsen who were already in Nicaragua, he was able to defeat the Conservatives at the Battle of Le Virgen on 4 September 1855 and by 13 October, Walker had taken Grenada, the Conservative capital. After his victories, Walker became the "de facto" dictator of Nicaragua, which many both inside and outside of the country soon started to call "Walkeragua".


title: Mercenary

text: At the time, Nicaragua was an extremely important transit point between the western and eastern United States as in the days before the Panama Canal and transcontinental railroad, ships from eastern United States would sail up the San Juan river to Lake Nicaragua, where passengers and goods were unloaded at the port of Rivas and then made the short journey via stagecoach to the Pacific coast, to be loaded onto ships that would take them to the west coast of the United States. One of the most important companies of the Nicaraguan stagecoach business was the Accessory Transit Company owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt of New York. Walker confiscated the Accessory Transit Company's assets in Nicaragua, which he handed over to the Morgan & Garrison company, owned by rivals of Vanderbilt. As Vanderbilt happened to be the richest man in the United States, he launched a lobbying campaign against Walker in Washington D.C. and was able to pressure President Franklin Pierce into withdrawing American recognition of Walker's regime.


title: Mercenary

text: Once it was understood that the U.S. government was no longer supporting Walker, Costa Rica invaded Nicaragua with the aim of deposing Walker, whose ambitions were felt to be a threat to all of Central America. The Costa Ricans defeated Walker at the Battle of Santa Rosa and the Second Battle of Rivas. The beleaguered Walker sought to appeal to support in his native South by restoring slavery in Nicaragua, making English the official language, changing the immigration law to favor Americans, and declaring his ultimate intention was to bring Nicaragua into the United States as a slave state. By this point, Walker had thoroughly alienated public opinion in Nicaragua while he was besieged in Grenada by a coalition of Guatemalan, Salvadorian and Costa Rican troops. The decision by Henningsen to burn down Grenada enraged Nicaraguan people and in March 1857, Walker, with his dreams of an empire in tatters, fled Nicaragua.


title: Mercenary

text: In the 1980s, one of the Reagan administration's foreign policy was to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government by arming guerrillas known as the Contras. Between 1982 and 1984, Congress passed the three Boland amendments which limited the extent of American aid to the Contra rebels. By the late 1970s, the popularity of magazines such as "Soldier of Fortune", which glorified the mercenary subculture, led to the opening of numerous camps in the United States designed to train men to be mercenaries and also to serve as guerrillas in case of a Soviet conquest of the United States. The vast majority of the men who trained in these camps were white men who saw para-military training as a "reverse the previous twenty years of American history and take back all the symbolic territory that has been lost" as the possibility of becoming mercenaries gave them "the fantastic possibility of escaping their present lives, being reborn as warrior and remaking the world".


title: Mercenary

text: Owing to the legal problems posed by the Boland amendments, the Reagan administration turned to the self-proclaimed mercenaries to arm and train the Contra guerrillas. In 1984, the CIA created the Civilian Military Assistance (CMA) group to aid the Contras. The CMA were led by a white supremacist from Alabama named Tom Posey, who like all of the other members of the CMA were graduates of the mercenary training camps. John Negroponte, the American ambassador to Honduras, arranged for permission to be given for the CMA to operate from Honduran territory. However, the operation collapsed later in 1984 when the Nicaraguans shot down a CMA plane carrying arms to the Contras, killing two Americans. Sam Hall, a self proclaimed mercenary hero and "counter-terrorist" who joined the CMA entered Nicaragua with the aim of performing sabotage operations. In 1986, Hall was captured by the Sandinistas, who held him for four months before releasing him under the grounds that he was not a mercenary, but rather a mercenary imposer. John K. Singlaub who worked alongside Hall described him as suffering from a "Walter Mitty type complex".


title: Mercenary

text: In 1994, President César Gaviria of Colombia signed Decree 356, which allowed wealthy landowners to recruit private armies of their own and liberalised the law on settling up PMCs in order to fight the Communist FARC ("Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia" – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas. As a result of Decree 356, by 2014 Colombia had 740 PMCs operating, more than anywhere else in the world. Increasingly Colombian mercenaries have been hired by American PMCs as being cheaper than American mercenaries. The government of the United Arab Emirates has hired Colombian mercenaries to fight its war in Yemen.


title: Mercenary

text: An early recorded use of foreign auxiliaries dates back to Ancient Egypt, the thirteenth century BC, when Pharaoh Ramesses II used 11,000 mercenaries during his battles. A long established foreign corps in the Egyptian forces were the Medjay—a generic term given to tribal scouts and light infantry recruited from Nubia serving from the late period of the Old Kingdom through that of the New Kingdom. Other warriors recruited from outside the borders of Egypt included Libyan, Syrian and Canaanite contingents under the New Kingdom and Sherdens from Sardinia who appear in their distinctive horned helmets on wall paintings as body guards for Ramesses II. Celtic mercenaries were greatly employed in the Greek world (leading to the sack of Delphi and the Celtic settlement of Galatia). The Greek rulers of Ptolemaic Egypt, too, used Celtic mercenaries. Carthage was unique for relying primarily on mercenaries to fight its wars, particularly Gaul and Spanish mercenaries.


title: Mercenary

text: In the 20th century, mercenaries in conflicts on the continent of Africa have in several cases brought about a swift end to bloody civil war by comprehensively defeating the rebel forces. There have been a number of unsavory incidents in the brushfire wars of Africa, some involving recruitment of European and American men "looking for adventure".


title: Mercenary

text: Many of the adventurers in Africa who have been described as mercenaries were in fact ideologically motivated to support particular governments, and would not fight "for the highest bidder". An example of this was the British South Africa Police (BSAP), a paramilitary, mounted infantry force formed by the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes in 1889–1890 that evolved and continued until 1980.


title: Mercenary

text: The Congo Crisis (1960–1965) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. During the crisis, mercenaries were employed by various factions, and also at times helped the United Nations and other peace keepers.


title: Mercenary

text: In 1960 and 1961, Mike Hoare worked as a mercenary commanding an English-speaking unit called "4 Commando" supporting a faction in Katanga, a province trying to break away from the newly independent Congo under the leadership of Moïse Tshombe. Hoare chronicled his exploits in his book the "Road to Kalamata".


title: Mercenary

text: In 1964 Tshombe (then Prime Minister of Congo) hired Major Hoare to lead a military unit called "5 Commando" made up of about 300 men, most of whom were from South Africa. The unit's mission was to fight a rebel group called Simbas, who already had captured almost two-thirds of the country.


title: Mercenary

text: In Operation Dragon Rouge, "5 Commando" worked in close cooperation with Belgian paratroopers, Cuban exile pilots, and CIA hired mercenaries. The objective of Operation Dragon Rouge was to capture Stanleyville and save several hundred civilians (mostly Europeans and missionaries) who were hostages of the Simba rebels. The operation saved many lives; however, the Operation damaged the reputation of Moïse Tshombe as it saw the return of white mercenaries to the Congo soon after independence and was a factor in Tshombe's loss of support from president of Congo Joseph Kasa-Vubu who dismissed him from his position


title: Mercenary

text: At the same time Bob Denard commanded the French-speaking "6 Commando", "Black Jack" Schramme commanded "10 Commando" and William "Rip" Robertson commanded a company of anti-Castro Cuban exiles.


title: Mercenary

text: Later, in 1966 and 1967, some former Tshombe mercenaries and Katangese gendarmes staged the Mercenaries' Mutinies.


title: Mercenary

text: Mercenaries fought for the Biafrans in the Fourth Commando Brigade led by Rolf Steiner during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970). Other mercenaries flew aircraft for the Biafrans. In October 1967, for example, a Royal Air Burundi DC-4M Argonaut, flown by mercenary Heinrich Wartski, also known as Henry Wharton, crash-landed in Cameroon with military supplies destined for Biafra.


title: Mercenary

text: It was hoped that employing mercenaries in Nigeria would have similar impact to the Congo, but the mercenaries proved largely ineffective. The British historian Philip Baxter wrote the principle difference was that the Congolese militias commanded by leaders with almost no military experience were no match for the mercenaries, and by contrast the Sandhurst-trained Nigerian Army officers were of an "altogether higher caliber" than Congolese militia leaders. Through much of the leadership of the Nigerian Army had been killed in two coups in 1966, there were still just enough Sandhust graduates left in 1967 to hold the Nigerian Army together and provide enough of a modicum of military professionalism to defeat the mercenaries. By October 1967, most of the mercenaries who had been expecting easy victories like those won in the Congo had already left Biafra, complaining that the Nigerians were a much tougher opponent who were defeating them in battle.


title: Mercenary

text: When asked about the impact of the white mercenaries, General Philip Effiong, the chief of the Biafran general staff replied: "They had not helped. It would had made no difference if not a single one of them came to work for the secessionist forces. Rolf Steiner stayed the longest. He was more of a bad influence than anything else. We were happy to get rid of him." One Biafran officer, Fola Oyewole, wrote about the sacking of Steiner in late 1968: "Steiner's departure from Biafra removed the shine from the white mercenaries, the myth of the white man's superiority in the art of soldering". Oyewole wrote that the white mercenaries were hated by the ordinary people of Biafra due to their high-handed behavior; a tendency to retreat when it appeared possible the Nigerians were about to cut them off instead of holding their ground; and a fondness for looting, noting that the European mercenaries seemed more interested in stealing as much as possible instead of helping Biafra."


title: Mercenary

text: In May 1969, Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen formed a squadron of five light aircraft known as the "Babies of Biafra", which attacked and destroyed Nigerian jet aircraft on the ground and delivered food aid. Count von Rosen was assisted by ex-RCAF fighter pilot Lynn Garrison.


title: Mercenary

text: In 1975, John Banks, an Englishman, recruited mercenaries to fight for the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) against the "Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola" (MPLA) in the civil war that broke out when Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975. In the United States, David Bufkin, a self-proclaimed mercenary hero started a recruiting campaign in "Soldier of Fortune" magazine calling for anti-Communist volunteers, especially Vietnam veterans, to fight in Angola as mercenaries, claiming to be funded to the tune of $80,000 by the Central Intelligence Agency. Bufkin was in fact a former U.S. Army soldier "who has gone AWOL several times, has been tried for rape, and been in and out of jail several times", did not have $80,000, was not supported by the CIA, instead being a con-man who had stolen most of the money paid to him. Bufkin managed to get a dozen or so American mercenaries to Angola, where several of them were killed in action with the rest being captured.


title: Mercenary

text: One of the leaders of the mercenaries was Costas Georgiou (the self-styled "Colonel Callan"), who was described by the British journalist Patrick Brogan as a psychopathic killer who personally executed fourteen of his fellow mercenaries for cowardice, and who was extremely brutal to black people. Within 48 hours of his arrival in Angola, Georgiou had already led his men in disarming and massacring a group of FNLA fighters (his supposed allies), who he killed just for the "fun" of it all. At his trial, it was established that Georgiou had personally murdered at least 170 Angolans. Inept as a military leader as he was brutal, Georgiou notably failed as a commander. It was believed in 1975–76 that recruiting white mercenaries to fight in Angola would have a similar impact that the mercenaries had in the Congo in the 1960s, but in Angola the mercenaries failed completely as Brogan described their efforts as a "debacle". If anything, the white mercanaries with their disdain for blacks, or in the case of Georgiou murderous hatred seemed to have depressed morale on the FNLA side.


title: Mercenary

text: Many of the mercenaries in Angola were not former professional soldiers as they claimed to have been, but instead merely fantasists who had invented heroic war records for themselves. The fantasist mercenaries did not know how to use their weapons properly, and often injured themselves and others when they attempted to use weaponry that they did not fully understand, leading to some of them being executed by the psychopathic killer Georgiou who did not tolerate failure. On 27 January 1976, a group of 96 British mercenaries arrived in Angola and within a week about dozen had accidentally maimed themselves by trying to use weapons that they falsely claimed to be proficient with. The MLPA forces were better organized and led, and the dispatch of 35, 000 Cuban Army troops in November 1975 decided the war for the MLPA. Cuban accounts of the Angolan war speak of the efforts of the mercenaries in a tone of contempt as Cuban veterans contend that the mercenaries were poor soldiers who they had no trouble defeating.


title: Mercenary

text: When captured, John Derek Barker's role as a leader of mercenaries in Northern Angola led the judges to send him to face the firing squad. Nine others were imprisoned. Three more were executed: American Daniel Gearhart was sentenced to death for advertising himself as a mercenary in an American newspaper; Andrew McKenzie and Costas Georgiou, who had both served in the British army, were sentenced to death for murder. Georgiou was shot by firing squad in 1976. Costas' cousin Charlie Christodoulou was killed in an ambush.


title: Mercenary

text: Executive Outcomes employees, Captains Daniele Zanata and Raif St Clair (who was also involved in the aborted Seychelles Coup of 1981), fought on behalf of the MPLA against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the 1990s in violation of the Lusaka Protocol.


title: Mercenary

text: A major aim of French foreign policy was and still is to maintain the French sphere of influence in what is called "Françafrique". In 1975, Ali Soilih took power in the Comoros via a coup, and proved unwilling to accept the French viewpoint that his nation was part of "Françafrique". Unhappy with Soilih, the French secret service, the "Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage" in 1978 hired the French mercenary Bob Denard to invade the Comoros to overthrow Soilih. Making the Comoros a tempting target for Denard were its small size, consisting of only three islands in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, Soilih had abolished the Comorian Army, replacing the Army with a militia known as the Moissy, made up mostly of teenage boys with only the most rudimentary military training. The Moissy, which was modeled after the Red Guard in China, existed mainly to terrorize Soilih's opponents and was commanded by a 15-year-old boy, appointed solely because of his blind devotion to Soilih.


title: Mercenary

text: On the night of 13 May 1978, Denard and 42 other mercenaries landed on Grande Comore island, annihilated the poorly trained and badly commanded Moissy, none of whom had any military experience, and by the morning the Comoros was theirs. President Soilih was high on marijuana and naked in his bed together with three nude teenage schoolgirls watching a pornographic film, when Denard kicked in the door to his room to inform him that he was no longer president. Soilih was later taken out and shot with the official excuse being that he was "shot while trying to escape". The new president of the Comoros, Ahmed Abdallah, was a puppet leader and the real ruler of the Comoros was Colonel Denard, who brought the Comoros back into "Françafrique".


title: Mercenary

text: As a ruler, Denard proved himself to be extremely greedy as he rapaciously plundered the Comorian economy to make himself into a very rich man. Denard served as the commander of the Comorian Presidential Guard and became the largest single landowner in the Comoros, developing the best land by the sea into luxury resorts catering to tourists who wanted to enjoy the tropics. Denard converted to Islam (the prevailing religion in the Comoros), and took advantage of the Islamic rules on polygamy to maintain for himself a harem of Comorian women. Officially, France was committed to the United Nations sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa, which French and South African businesses circumvented via the Comoros, a form of sanctions-busting that was tolerated by Denard as long as he received his cut of the profits.


title: Mercenary

text: Ultimately, Denard's antics as the "great white conqueror" of the Comoros and his lavish lifestyle made him into embarrassment for the French government, as there were charges that France was engaged in neo-colonialism in the Comoros. At the same time there were alternatives to Denard in the form of black Comorian politicians who wanted Denard out, but were willing to keep the Comoros in "Françafrique", which would allowed Paris to achieve its aims without the embarrassment of a white European exploiting a country inhabited by black Africans. When Abdallah tried to dismiss Denard as commander of the Presidential Guard, Denard had him assassinated on 26 November 1989. At that point, the French government, which had an alternative leadership in place, intervened by sending paratroopers to remove Denard and the other mercenaries from the Comoros while installing Said Mohamed Djohar as president.


title: Mercenary

text: On 28 September 1995, Denard again invaded the Comoros, but this time, Paris was against the invasion, and 600 paratroops were dispatched to the Comoros to usher Denard and his mercenaries out. Denard was charged in France with the murder of President Abdallah, but was acquitted owing to a lack of evidence. In 2006, he was found guilty of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the Comoros in 1995, but by this point Denard was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and he did not serve a day in prison, instead dying in a Paris hospital on 13 October 2007.


title: Mercenary

text: In 1981, "Mad Mike" Hoare was hired by the government of South Africa to lead an invasion of the Seychelles with the aim of deposing the left-wing President France-Albert René, who had roundly criticized apartheid, and replacing him with a more apartheid-friendly leader. Disguised as a drinking club, Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers, and as rugby players, Hoare led a force of 53 men into the airport at Port Larue on 25 November 1981. Hoare's men failed to make it past the customs at the airport as an alert customs officer noticed one of the "rugby players" had an AK-47 assault rifle hidden in his luggage. What followed was a shoot-out at the airport between Hoare's men and Seychellois customs officers. Realizing the invasion was doomed, Hoare and his men escaped by hijacking an Air India jet which flew them back to South Africa. The fiasco of the Seychelles invasion marked the beginning of the decline of the traditional soldier of fortune, centered around a charismatic figure like Hoare or Denard, and a change over to the corporatized private military company, run by men who shunned the limelight.


title: Mercenary

text: Both sides hired mercenaries in the Eritrean–Ethiopian War from 1998 to 2000. Russian mercenaries were believed to be flying in the air forces of both sides.


title: Mercenary

text: American Robert C. MacKenzie was killed in the Malal Hills in February 1995, while commanding Gurkha Security Guards (GSG) in Sierra Leone. GSG pulled out soon afterwards and was replaced by Executive Outcomes. Both were employed by the Sierra Leone government as military advisers and to train the government soldiers. It has been alleged that the firms provided soldiers who took an active part in the fighting against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).


title: Mercenary

text: In 2000, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program "Foreign Correspondent" broadcast a special report "Sierra Leone: Soldiers of Fortune", focusing on former 32BN and Recce members who operated in Sierra Leone while serving for SANDF. Officers like De Jesus Antonio, TT D Abreu Capt Ndume and Da Costa were the forefront because of their combat and language skills and also the exploits of South African pilot Neall Ellis and his MI-24 Hind gunship. The report also investigated the failures of the UN Peacekeeping Force, and the involvement of mercenaries and private military contractors in providing vital support to UN operations and British military Special Operations in Sierra Leone in 1999–2000.


title: Mercenary

text: In August 2004 there was a plot, which later became known as the "Wonga Coup", to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea in Malabo. Currently eight South African apartheid-era soldiers, organised by Neves Matias (former Recce major and De Jesus Antonio former Captain in 2sai BN) with (the leader of whom is Nick du Toit) and five local men are in Black Beach prison on the island. They are accused of being an advanced guard for a coup to place Severo Moto in power. Six Armenian aircrew, also convicted of involvement in the plot, were released in 2004 after receiving a presidential pardon. CNN reported on 25 August, that:


title: Mercenary

text: It was planned, allegedly, by Simon Mann, a former SAS officer. On 27 August 2004 he was found guilty in Zimbabwe of purchasing arms, allegedly for use in the plot (he admitted trying to procure dangerous weapons, but said that they were to guard a diamond mine in DR Congo). It is alleged that there is a paper trail from him which implicates Sir Mark Thatcher, Lord Archer and Ely Calil (a Lebanese-British oil trader).


title: Mercenary

text: Muammar Gaddafi in Libya was alleged to have been using mercenary soldiers during the 2011 Libyan civil war, including Tuaregs from various nations in Africa. Many of them had been part of his Islamic Legion created in 1972. Reports say around 800 had been recruited from Niger, Mali, Algeria, Ghana and Burkina Faso. In addition, small numbers of Eastern European mercenaries have also turned up supporting the Gaddafi regime. Most sources have described these troops as professional Serbian veterans of the Yugoslavia conflict, including snipers, pilots and helicopter experts. Certain observers, however, speculate that they may be from Poland or Belarus. The latter has denied the claims outright; the former is investigating them. Although the Serbian government has denied that any of their nationals are currently serving as mercenary soldiers in North Africa, five such men have been captured by anti-Gaddafi rebels in Tripoli and several others have also allegedly fought during the Second Battle of Benghazi. Most recently, a number of unidentified white South African mercenaries were hired to smuggle Gaddafi and his sons to exile in Niger. Their attempts were thwarted by NATO air activity shortly before the death of Libya's ousted strongman. Numerous reports have indicated that the team was still protecting Saif al-Islam Gaddafi shortly before his recent apprehension.


title: Mercenary

text: Amnesty International has claimed that such allegations against Gaddafi and the Libyan state turned out to either be false or lacking any evidence. Human Rights Watch has indicated that while many foreign migrants were erroneously accused of fighting with Gaddafi, there were also genuine mercenaries from several nations who participated in the conflict.


title: Mercenary

text: More recently in 2020 at least several hundred mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group have been fighting on the side of the warlord, General Khalifa Haftar, whom the government of Russia supports. The Wagner Group mercenaries arrived in Libya in late 2019. The Wagner Group have excelled as snipers, and one result of their arrival was a rapid increase in the number of sniper deaths on the opposing side that holds Tripoli. In response, the government of Turkey has hired 2, 000 Syrian mercenaries to fight for the opposing faction that it is supporting in the Libyan civil war.


title: Mercenary

text: Since 2019, Turkey deployed Syrian mercenaries in the Libya (See: Turkish military intervention in the Second Libyan Civil War). In July 2020 Al Arabiyah reported that Turkey sent Syrian, Tunisian, Egyptian and Sudanese mercenaries into Libya.


title: Mercenary

text: A November 2020 report by human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch claimed that approximately hundreds of Sudanese men were hired by an Emirati security firm Black Shield Security Services as security guards for malls and hotels in the UAE, but were subsequently tricked into fighting in the Libyan Civil War. Reportedly 390 men were recruited from Khartoum, out of which 12 spoke to HRW and told that they were made to live alongside Libyan fighters aligned with UAE-backed General Khalifa Haftar. The recruits were hired to safeguard the oil facilities controlled by the Haftar forces.


title: Mercenary

text: By 1807, Muhammad Ali the Great, the Albanian tobacco merchant turned "de facto" independent Ottoman "vali" (governor) of Egypt had imported about 400 French mercenaries to train his army. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, Muhammad Ali recruited more mercenaries from all over Europe and the United States to train his army, through French and Italian veterans of the Napoleonic wars were much preferred and formed the largest two groups of mercenaries in Egypt. The most famous of Muhammad Ali's mercenaries was the Frenchman Joseph-Anthelme Sève who set up the first staff school in Egypt and served as the chief of staff to Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the "vali" and his favorite general. By the 1820s, Muhammad Ali's mercenaries had created a mass conscript army trained to fight in the Western style together with schools for training Egyptian officers and factories for manufacturing Western style weapons as the "vali" did not wish to be dependent upon imported arms.


title: Mercenary

text: Muhammad Ali's grandson, Ismail the Magnificent, who ruled as the Khedive of Egypt between 1863 and 79 recruited mercenaries on large scale. After Napoleon III made an unfavorable arbitration ruling in 1869 about the share of royalties from the newly opened Suez canal, which cost Ismail 3, 000, 000 Egyptian pounds per year, Ismail came to distrust his French mercenaries, and began to look elsewhere. A number of Italian mercenaries such as Romolo Gessi, Gaetamo Casati, Andreanni Somani, and Giacomo Messedaglia played prominent roles in the Egyptian campaigns in the Sudan. Ismail also recruited British mercenaries such as Samuel Baker and the Swiss mercenaries such as Werner Munzinger. After 1869, Ismail recruited 48 American mercenaries to command his army. General Charles Pomeroy Stone, formerly of the United States Army, served as the chief of the Egyptian general staff between 1870 and 1883. Ismail's Americans went to Egypt largely because of the high pay he offered, through several were Confederate veterans who were barred from serving in post-1865 United States Army. The fact that the Americans in Egyptian service had fought on opposing sides in the Civil War was a source of recurring tension as the antagonism between North and South continued in Egypt.


title: Mercenary

text: The Free Syrian Army claimed the Bashar al-Assad regime recruited mercenaries from Iran, Hezbollah militia and the Iraqi Mahdi Army militia during the Syrian Civil War. The Russian government had approved of the deployment in 2016 of the Wagner Group mercenaries to fight for the Syrian government. The Wagner Group is reported to have played an important role in helping to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war in favor of the government, which in 2015 appeared to be close to collapse. On 7 February 2018, the Wagner Group mercenaries were reported to have attacked an American base in Syria together with a pro-Assad militia in what is known as the Battle of Khasham.


title: Mercenary

text: Multiple mercenary groups, called Popular Committees, which consists of Yemeni tribes loyal to different factions, were formed by both the Hadi government as well as the Houthi Supreme Political Council in the Yemeni Civil War.


title: Mercenary

text: During operation Decisive Storm, multiple sources reported that Latin American military contractors from Academi headed by Erik Prince were hired by UAE Armed Forces to assist in the fight against Houthis.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: In mathematics, a spherical coordinate system is a coordinate system for three-dimensional space where the position of a point is specified by three numbers: the "radial distance" of that point from a fixed origin, its "polar angle" measured from a fixed zenith direction, and the "azimuthal angle" of its orthogonal projection on a reference plane that passes through the origin and is orthogonal to the zenith, measured from a fixed reference direction on that plane. It can be seen as the three-dimensional version of the polar coordinate system.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The radial distance is also called the "radius" or "radial coordinate". The polar angle may be called "colatitude", "zenith angle", "normal angle", or "inclination angle".


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: When radius is fixed, the two angular coordinates make a coordinate system on the sphere sometimes called spherical polar coordinates.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The use of symbols and the order of the coordinates differs among sources and disciplines. This article will use the ISO convention frequently encountered in physics: "formula_1" gives the radial distance, polar angle, and azimuthal angle. By contrast, in many mathematics books, formula_2 or formula_1 gives the radial distance, azimuthal angle, and polar angle, switching the meanings of "θ" and "φ". Other conventions are also used, such as "r" for radius from the "z-"axis, so great care needs to be taken to check the meaning of the symbols.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: According to the conventions of geographical coordinate systems, positions are measured by latitude, longitude, and height (altitude). There are a number of celestial coordinate systems based on different fundamental planes and with different terms for the various coordinates. The spherical coordinate systems used in mathematics normally use radians rather than degrees and measure the azimuthal angle counterclockwise from the -axis to the -axis rather than clockwise from north (0°) to east (+90°) like the horizontal coordinate system. The polar angle is often replaced by the "elevation angle" measured from the reference plane towards the positive Z axis, so that the elevation angle of zero is at the horizon; the "depression angle" is the negative of the elevation angle.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The spherical coordinate system generalizes the two-dimensional polar coordinate system. It can also be extended to higher-dimensional spaces and is then referred to as a hyperspherical coordinate system.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: To define a spherical coordinate system, one must choose two orthogonal directions, the "zenith" and the "azimuth reference", and an "origin" point in space. These choices determine a reference plane that contains the origin and is perpendicular to the zenith. The spherical coordinates of a point are then defined as follows:


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The sign of the azimuth is determined by choosing what is a "positive" sense of turning about the zenith. This choice is arbitrary, and is part of the coordinate system's definition.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The "elevation" angle is the signed angle between the reference plane and the line segment , where positive angles are oriented towards the zenith. Equivalently, it is 90 degrees ( radians) minus the inclination angle.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: If the inclination is zero or 180 degrees ( radians), the azimuth is arbitrary. If the radius is zero, both azimuth and inclination are arbitrary.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: In linear algebra, the vector from the origin to the point is often called the "position vector" of "P".


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Several different conventions exist for representing the three coordinates, and for the order in which they should be written. The use of formula_1 to denote radial distance, inclination (or elevation), and azimuth, respectively, is common practice in physics, and is specified by ISO standard 80000-2:2019, and earlier in ISO 31-11 (1992).


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: However, some authors (including mathematicians) use "ρ" for radial distance, "φ" for inclination (or elevation) and "θ" for azimuth, and "r" for radius from the "z-"axis, which "provides a logical extension of the usual polar coordinates notation".<ref name="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html"></ref> Some authors may also list the azimuth before the inclination (or elevation). Some combinations of these choices result in a left-handed coordinate system. The standard convention formula_1 conflicts with the usual notation for two-dimensional polar coordinates and three-dimensional cylindrical coordinates, where is often used for the azimuth.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The angles are typically measured in degrees (°) or radians (rad), where 360° = 2 rad. Degrees are most common in geography, astronomy, and engineering, whereas radians are commonly used in mathematics and theoretical physics. The unit for radial distance is usually determined by the context.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: When the system is used for physical three-space, it is customary to use positive sign for azimuth angles that are measured in the counter-clockwise sense from the reference direction on the reference plane, as seen from the zenith side of the plane. This convention is used, in particular, for geographical coordinates, where the "zenith" direction is north and positive azimuth (longitude) angles are measured eastwards from some prime meridian.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Any spherical coordinate triplet formula_1 specifies a single point of three-dimensional space. On the other hand, every point has infinitely many equivalent spherical coordinates. One can add or subtract any number of full turns to either angular measure without changing the angles themselves, and therefore without changing the point. It is also convenient, in many contexts, to allow negative radial distances, with the convention that formula_7 is equivalent to formula_1 for any , , and . Moreover, formula_9 is equivalent to formula_10.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: If it is necessary to define a unique set of spherical coordinates for each point, one must restrict their ranges. A common choice is


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: However, the azimuth is often restricted to the interval , or in radians, instead of . This is the standard convention for geographic longitude.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: For , the range for inclination is equivalent to for elevation. In geography, the latitude is the elevation.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Even with these restrictions, if is 0° or 180° (elevation is 90° or −90°) then the azimuth angle is arbitrary; and if is zero, both azimuth and inclination/elevation are arbitrary. To make the coordinates unique, one can use the convention that in these cases the arbitrary coordinates are zero.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: To plot a dot from its spherical coordinates , where is inclination, move units from the origin in the zenith direction, rotate by about the origin towards the azimuth reference direction, and rotate by about the zenith in the proper direction.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Just as the two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system is useful on the plane, a two-dimensional spherical coordinate system is useful on the surface of a sphere. In this system, the sphere is taken as a unit sphere, so the radius is unity and can generally be ignored. This simplification can also be very useful when dealing with objects such as rotational matrices.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Spherical coordinates are useful in analyzing systems that have some degree of symmetry about a point, such as volume integrals inside a sphere, the potential energy field surrounding a concentrated mass or charge, or global weather simulation in a planet's atmosphere. A sphere that has the Cartesian equation has the simple equation in spherical coordinates.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Two important partial differential equations that arise in many physical problems, Laplace's equation and the Helmholtz equation, allow a separation of variables in spherical coordinates. The angular portions of the solutions to such equations take the form of spherical harmonics.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Another application is ergonomic design, where is the arm length of a stationary person and the angles describe the direction of the arm as it reaches out.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Three dimensional modeling of loudspeaker output patterns can be used to predict their performance. A number of polar plots are required, taken at a wide selection of frequencies, as the pattern changes greatly with frequency. Polar plots help to show that many loudspeakers tend toward omnidirectionality at lower frequencies.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The spherical coordinate system is also commonly used in 3D game development to rotate the camera around the player's position


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: To a first approximation, the geographic coordinate system uses elevation angle ("latitude") in degrees north of the equator plane, in the range , instead of inclination. Latitude is either "geocentric latitude", measured at the Earth's center and designated variously by or "geodetic latitude", measured by the observer's local vertical, and commonly designated .


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The polar angle, which is 90° minus the latitude and ranges from 0 to 180°, is called "colatitude" in geography.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The azimuth angle ("longitude"), commonly denoted by , is measured in degrees east or west from some conventional reference meridian (most commonly the IERS Reference Meridian), so its domain is . For positions on the Earth or other solid celestial body, the reference plane is usually taken to be the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Instead of the radial distance, geographers commonly use "altitude" above or below some reference surface ("vertical datum"), which may be the mean sea level. The radial distance can be computed from the altitude by adding the radius of Earth, which is approximately .


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: However, modern geographical coordinate systems are quite complex, and the positions implied by these simple formulae may be wrong by several kilometers. The precise standard meanings of latitude, longitude and altitude are currently defined by the World Geodetic System (WGS), and take into account the flattening of the Earth at the poles (about ) and many other details.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: A series of astronomical coordinate systems are used to measure the elevation angle from different fundamental planes. These reference planes are the observer's horizon, the celestial equator (defined by Earth's rotation), the plane of the ecliptic (defined by Earth's orbit around the Sun), the plane of the earth terminator (normal to the instantaneous direction to the Sun), and the galactic equator (defined by the rotation of the Milky Way).


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: As the spherical coordinate system is only one of many three-dimensional coordinate systems, there exist equations for converting coordinates between the spherical coordinate system and others.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The spherical coordinates of a point in the ISO convention (i.e. for physics: radius , inclination , azimuth ) can be obtained from its Cartesian coordinates by the formulae


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The inverse tangent denoted in must be suitably defined, taking into account the correct quadrant of . See the article on atan2.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Alternatively, the conversion can be considered as two sequential rectangular to polar conversions: the first in the Cartesian plane from to , where is the projection of onto the -plane, and the second in the Cartesian -plane from to . The correct quadrants for and are implied by the correctness of the planar rectangular to polar conversions.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: These formulae assume that the two systems have the same origin, that the spherical reference plane is the Cartesian plane, that is inclination from the direction, and that the azimuth angles are measured from the Cartesian axis (so that the axis has ). If "θ" measures elevation from the reference plane instead of inclination from the zenith the arccos above becomes an arcsin, and the and below become switched.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Conversely, the Cartesian coordinates may be retrieved from the spherical coordinates ("radius" , "inclination" , "azimuth" ), where , , , by


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Cylindrical coordinates ("axial" "radius" "ρ", "azimuth" "φ", "elevation" "z") may be converted into spherical coordinates ("central radius" "r", "inclination" "θ", "azimuth" "φ"), by the formulas


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: These formulae assume that the two systems have the same origin and same reference plane, measure the azimuth angle in the same senses from the same axis, and that the spherical angle is inclination from the cylindrical axis.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: It is also possible to deal with ellipsoids in Cartesian coordinates by using a modified version of the spherical coordinates.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The modified spherical coordinates of a point in P in the ISO convention (i.e. for physics: "radius" , "inclination" , "azimuth" ) can be obtained from its Cartesian coordinates by the formulae


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The square-root factor comes from the property of the determinant that allows a constant to be pulled out from a column:


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The following equations (Iyanaga 1977) assume that the colatitude is the inclination from the (polar) axis (ambiguous since , , and are mutually normal), as in the "physics convention" discussed.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: and , , and are the unit vectors in Cartesian coordinates. The linear transformation to this right-handed coordinate triplet is a rotation matrix,


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: This gives the transformation from the spherical to the cartesian, the other way around is given by its inverse.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: that is, the change in formula_24 is decomposed into individual changes corresponding to changes in the individual coordinates.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: To apply this to the present case, one needs to calculate how formula_24 changes with each of the coordinates. In the conventions used,


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The volume element spanning from to , to , and to is specified by the determinant of the Jacobian matrix of partial derivatives,


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The del operator in this system leads to the following expressions for the gradient, divergence, curl and (scalar) Laplacian,


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: In spherical coordinates, the position of a point or particle (although better written as a tripleformula_41) can be written as


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: Where formula_46 is mass. In the case of a constant or else , this reduces to vector calculus in polar coordinates.


title: Spherical coordinate system

text: The corresponding angular momentum operator then follows from the phase-space reformulation of the above,


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin, also spelled cephalexin, is an antibiotic that can treat a number of bacterial infections. It kills gram-positive and some gram-negative bacteria by disrupting the growth of the bacterial cell wall. Cefalexin is a beta-lactam antibiotic within the class of first-generation cephalosporins. It works similarly to other agents within this class, including intravenous cefazolin, but can be taken by mouth.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin can treat certain bacterial infections, including those of the middle ear, bone and joint, skin, and urinary tract. It may also be used for certain types of pneumonia and strep throat and to prevent bacterial endocarditis. Cefalexin is not effective against infections caused by methicillin-resistant "Staphylococcus aureus" (MRSA), most "Enterococcus", or "Pseudomonas". Like other antibiotics, cefalexin cannot treat viral infections, such as the flu, common cold or acute bronchitis. Cefalexin can be used in those who have mild or moderate allergies to penicillin. However, it is not recommended in those with severe penicillin allergies.


title: Cefalexin

text: Common side effects include stomach upset and diarrhea. Allergic reactions or infections with "Clostridium difficile", a cause of diarrhea, are also possible. Use during pregnancy or breast feeding does not appear to be harmful to the baby. It can be used in children and those over 65 years of age. Those with kidney problems may require a decrease in dose.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin was developed in 1967. It was first marketed in 1969 and 1970 under the names Keflex and Ceporex, among others. Generic drug versions are available under other trade names and are inexpensive. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. In 2020, it was the 101st most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 7million prescriptions. In Canada, it was the fifth most common antibiotic used in 2013. In Australia, it is one of the top 15 most prescribed medications.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin can treat a number of bacterial infections including otitis media, streptococcal pharyngitis, bone and joint infections, pneumonia, cellulitis, and urinary tract infections. It may be used to prevent bacterial endocarditis. It can also be used for the prevention of recurrent urinary-tract infections.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin is a useful alternative to penicillins in patients with penicillin intolerance. For example, penicillin is the treatment of choice for respiratory tract infections caused by "Streptococcus", but cefalexin may be used as an alternative in penicillin-intolerant patients. Caution must be exercised when administering cephalosporin antibiotics to penicillin-sensitive patients, because cross-sensitivity with beta-lactam antibiotics has been documented in up to 10% of patients with a documented penicillin allergy.


title: Cefalexin

text: It is category A in Australia meaning that no evidence of harm has been found after being taken by many pregnant women. Use during breast feeding is generally safe.


title: Cefalexin

text: The most common adverse effects of cefalexin, like other oral cephalosporins, are gastrointestinal (stomach area) disturbances and hypersensitivity reactions. Gastrointestinal disturbances include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, the latter being the most common. Hypersensitivity reactions include skin rashes, urticaria, fever, and anaphylaxis. Pseudomembranous colitis and "Clostridium difficile" have been reported with use of cefalexin. Less common and more serious side effects include bruising of the skin and yellowing of the skin or eye whites.


title: Cefalexin

text: Signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction include rash, itching, swelling, trouble breathing, or red, blistered, swollen, or peeling skin. Overall, cefalexin allergy occurs in less than 0.1% of patients, but it is seen in 1% to 10% of patients with a penicillin allergy.


title: Cefalexin

text: Like other β-lactam antibiotics, renal excretion of cefalexin is delayed by probenecid. It is also not recommended to take cephalexin with dofetilide, live Cholera vaccine, warfarin, and cholesyramine. Alcohol consumption reduces the rate at which it is absorbed. Cefalexin also interacts with metformin, an antidiabetic drug, and this can lead to higher concentrations of metformin in the body. Histamine H receptor antagonists like cimetidine and ranitidine may reduce the efficacy of cefalexin by delaying its absorption and altering its antimicrobial pharmacodynamics. Zinc and zinc supplements also interact with cefalexin and may reduce the amount of cefalexin in the body.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin is a beta-lactam antibiotic of the cephalosporin family. It is bactericidal and acts by inhibiting synthesis of the peptidoglycan layer of the bacterial cell wall. As cefalexin closely resembles d-alanyl-d-alanine, an amino acid ending on the peptidoglycan layer of the cell wall, it is able to irreversibly bind to the active site of PBP, which is essential for the synthesis of the cell wall. It is most active against gram-positive cocci, and has moderate activity against some gram-negative bacilli. However, some bacterial cells have the enzyme β-lactamase, which hydrolyzes the beta-lactam ring, rendering the drug inactive. This contributes to antibacterial resistance towards cefalexin.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin is rapidly and almost completely absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract with oral administration. Absorption is slightly reduced when it is taken with food and the medication can be taken without regard for meals. Peak levels of cefalexin occur about 1 hour after administration. Maximal levels of cefalexin increase approximately linearly over a dose range of 250 to 1,000 mg.


title: Cefalexin

text: The elimination half-life of cefalexin is approximately 30 to 60 minutes in people with normal renal function. Therapeutic levels of cefalexin with oral administration are maintained for 6 to 8 hours. For this reason, cefalexin is typically administered once every 6 to 12 hours depending on the indication. More than 90% of cefalexin is excreted unchanged in the urine within 8 hours.


title: Cefalexin

text: It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. The World Health Organization classifies cefalexin as highly important for human medicine.


title: Cefalexin

text: Cefalexin is the International Nonproprietary Name (INN) and the Australian Approved Name (AAN), while cephalexin is the British Approved Name (BAN) and the United States Adopted Name (USAN). Brand names for cefalexin include Keflex, Acfex, Cephalex, Ceporex, L-Xahl, Medoxine, Ospexin, Torlasporin, Bio-Cef, Panixine DisperDose, and Novo-Lexin.


title: Cefalexin

text: According to Plumb's Veterinary Medication Guides, cefalexin can be used in treating skin, respiratory tract, and urinary tract infections. Specifically, it can be used to treat pyoderma in dogs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved it for use in humans and dogs but not for other species. Like other drugs approved for human use, cefalexin may be prescribed by veterinarians for animals in certain situations.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: On August 3, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. In the terrorist attack, a far-right individual killed 23 people and injured 23 others. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history, and is the deadliest mass shooting in the US to conclude with an alleged perpetrator being caught alive to face legal repercussions.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Patrick Wood Crusius, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas, was arrested and charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting. Police believe a manifesto with white nationalist and anti-immigrant themes, posted on the online message board 8chan shortly before the attack, was written by Crusius; it cites the year's earlier Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand and the far-right conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement as inspiration for the attack.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The shooting occurred at a Walmart Supercenter near the Cielo Vista Mall on the east side of El Paso. The shooter walked into the store carrying what is believed to be a WASR-10 rifle, a semi-automatic civilian version of the AK-47, and opened fire just before 10:40 a.m.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The store manager witnessed the killer begin firing in the parking lot prior to entering the crowded store. He issued a "Code Brown", designating an active shooter, to his employees, who began helping customers evacuate or hide. Many customers and employees fled to other stores in the adjacent mall or hid under tables or in shipping containers located behind the building.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: First responders began to arrive within six minutes of the initial 9-1-1 call. The El Paso Police Department, Texas Rangers and paramedics responded to the scene along with the FBI and the ATF.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: After the shooting, a suspect, Patrick Wood Crusius, drove to the intersection of Sunmount and Viscount, where he allegedly identified himself as the shooter and surrendered to Texas Rangers and an El Paso motorcycle officer.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The shooting has been described as the deadliest anti-Latino attack in recent U.S. history, resulting in 23 deaths and 23 injuries. One victim died the day after the event, another victim died two days after,<ref name="Georgantopoulos_8/5/2019"></ref> and a third died eight months later on April 26, 2020. Among the dead were thirteen Americans, eight Mexicans and one German. The names, ages, and citizenships of 22 of the dead were released by the El Paso Police Department on August 5. Seventeen were 56 or older, two were in their 40s, two in their 20s, one was 36, and one was 15.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Thirteen victims were taken to the University Medical Center of El Paso, and another eleven to the Del Sol Medical Center. Two children, ages 2 and 9, were transferred to El Paso Children's Hospital after their conditions were stabilized. The Del Sol Medical Center patients were between 35 and 82 years old.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Patrick Wood Crusius (born July 27, 1998) was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with capital murder. A 21-year-old white male, he was last known to have lived in his family's home in Allen, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, approximately from El Paso. He graduated in 2017 from Plano Senior High School, and was enrolled at Collin College from 2017 until spring 2019.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Police said he bought the gun used in the attack legally, but provided no details about the purchase. During his first interrogation, he told detectives he had targeted Mexicans, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.<ref name="Leon_8/10/2019"></ref>


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The El Paso police chief, Greg Allen, said that they are "reasonably confident" that a manifesto, titled "The Inconvenient Truth", was posted by the suspect on the online message board 8chan shortly before the shooting. It identifies the type of weapon used in the attack; the suspect's name was revealed in a separate document in the post. Site moderators quickly removed the original post, though users continued sharing copies. Claiming to have been inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand that killed 51 people earlier the same year, the author expresses support for the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings and bemoans grievances such as environmental degradation, "cultural and ethnic replacement", and a "Hispanic invasion".


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant manifesto promotes the white nationalist and far-right conspiracy theory called the Great Replacement, often attributed to the French writer Renaud Camus. While the document uses language about immigrants similar to that used by U.S. president Donald Trump, such as referring to a migrant "invasion", it states that the author's beliefs predate Trump's presidency, and that Trump should not be blamed for the attack. The author's "racially extremist views", according to "The New York Times", could be used to prosecute the shooting as a hate crime or domestic terrorism.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The manifesto states that Democrats would soon control the United States partly due to an increasing Hispanic population, an idea that had gained acceptance for years on right-wing radio shows. Criticizing both the Democratic Party and Republican Party for allowing corporations to "import foreign workers", the author describes the shooting as an "incentive" for Hispanics to leave the country, which would "remove the threat" of a Hispanic voting bloc. While primarily focused on ethnic and racial grievances, the document also expresses fears of automation's effects on employment and blames corporations for overusing natural resources.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The arrest warrant affidavit says Crusius waived his "Miranda" rights, confessed to detectives that he was the shooter, and admitted that he targeted "Mexicans" during the attack.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: There are multiple investigations and jurisdictions involved with the case. FBI officials in El Paso served multiple warrants in the Dallas area and interviewed acquaintances of Crusius in Dallas and San Antonio.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: On February 6, 2020, Crusius was charged with 90 federal charges: 22 counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death, 22 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder, 23 counts of a hate crime involving an attempt to kill, and 23 counts of use of a firearm during a crime. Federal prosecutors of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas are seeking the death penalty, but the final decision on whether a federal capital sentence will be sought will be made by the Attorney General of the United States.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Crusius waived his federal bond hearing on February 12, 2020, during his first federal court appearance. A trial in federal court is expected before the trial in state court. On July 23, 2020, Crusius entered a plea of not-guilty to federal charges. He also waived his arraignment on those charges.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: In July 2020, the federal court granted a defense motion for more time to investigate "a number of 'red-flag' mitigation themes" as federal prosecutors decided whether to seek a death sentence. In the motion, the defense said that Crusius had "severe" lifelong neurological and mental disabilities; that he was treated with anti-psychotic medication after his arrest; and that he was in a "psychotic state" when arrested.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The trial was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas and the large volume of evidence. At a February 2022 hearing, the defense team requested a trial start date of March 2025 or later, while federal prosecutors asked for a June 2023 trial date. Defense attorneys said they needed more time to comb through 1.76 million files and 763 gigabytes of video obtained through the discovery process, and told U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama that the defense might raise an insanity defense. In the same hearing, the prosecution team said that the federal government had not yet decided whether to pursue the death penalty.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Crusius was indicted on capital murder charges by a Texas grand jury on September 12, 2019. He pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges at his arraignment on October 10, 2019, at the El Paso County Courthouse. Mark Stevens, a San Antonio criminal defense attorney, was appointed by the state court to represent Crusius, along with defense attorney Joe Spencer. On April 28, 2020, prosecutors announced they would be seeking a new capital murder charge following the recent death of a twenty-third victim after he spent nine months in the hospital.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: The state trial is expected to occur after the federal trial. Proceedings were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive amount of evidence in the case.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Several funeral homes in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez announced they would provide funeral services for free to the families of the victims as a sign of solidarity for their community. Ciudad Juárez's Rotary International chapter organized a vigil in Ciudad Juárez. They gathered at a park and lit candles and shone cellphone lights in El Paso's direction as a sign of solidarity.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: Antonio Basco declared his wife's funeral on August 16 to be open to anyone who wished to attend. Hundreds of people from El Paso and other parts of the country attended, and flowers were sent from around the world.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: El Paso musician Khalid held a benefit concert for his home city on September 1, featuring several high-profile artists and introduced by fellow El Paso native and former US Representative Beto O'Rourke.


title: 2019 El Paso shooting

text: One week after the shooting, a citizen from Ciudad Juárez, Jorge Luis Martínez Chávez, ran a total of 22 miles, a mile for each of the people killed in the Walmart shooting (one additional victim died months later), starting at the Zaragoza bridge in Juárez, Mexico, and finishing at the Walmart memorial in El Paso where the attack was perpetrated.