YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, ARMENPRESS. American reporter Lindsey Snell has released new excerpts from her interviews with Syrian militant mercenaries who were recruited by Turkey and taken to Azerbaijan to fight in the attacks on Artsakh.

Two fighters from the Hamza Division rebel group who already returned from Azerbaijan told Snell that they were deceived upon being recruited and didn’t know they were going to fight against Armenians. "We were supposed to be base guards with the Turks. That's what the job was supposed to be,” they told Snell.

“Deaths started from the first day of battles. Every day, 5 to 10 dead, and sometimes more. In one batch 28 died due to snipers who were highly trained. The Azerbaijani army was there, but they didn't fight, they stayed 200m behind the Syrians,” the unidentified mercenary told the journalist. “Many Hamza returned, maybe half. They sent 1000, and maybe 300 returned, and many people died.”

The mercenary said they took a civilian flight from Baku to Ankara, and a military flight to Gaziantep.

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan