testers in iran where more than a 1000 innocent civilians were tortured and killed by their own government we took action last night to stop a war we did not take action to start a war iran's supreme leader. has vowed. the killing of solomonic and iran's foreign minister is warning appropriate retaliation is imminent in other news libyan will go to leaf i have to say he's fired he's now against a foreign occupier to turkey agreed to send troops to libya after his forces of light siege to the capital tripoli since april. the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera off to talk to our jazeera even bolen. we know what's happening i reject we know how to get to the places that others and all i was just thrown. by the police on fire best if i was honest and

i'm willing to. that every night i know. the way they can tell that story is what can make a difference. 'd or rule. for years private armies have provided services to governments around the world they are often secretive that operate in the shadows. blackwater now known as academy is one of the most well known private army it has provided troops and other services to the u.s. government in different conflicts including the war in iraq but it's not always clear how these private armies are formed where they operate or even what their missions consist of so we travel to south africa to find out more even barlow is chairman of specialized tasks training equipment and protection international

a private army that according to barlow has operated throughout africa and beyond he was also behind another similar company that shut down in 1980 called executive outcomes and while many argue private armies are mercenaries doing the jobs government don't want to do barlow insists his operations are legitimate and follow international law but who make sure these armies are indeed following international law and what about accountability even barlow talks to al-jazeera. thank you very much for talking to all just look thank you so how would you like to identify yourself well 1st of all i'm an african. i'm also a south african and i see what i do. advise governments and their own forces in terms of national security it's what i do if governments have a requirement whether it be political or security and they speak to me i advise

them as best i can isn't it true that you are one of the pioneers if not the pioneer who moved this trade of mercenary activity from just an individual trade into a fully fledged industry well i think we were probably the 1st company or a private company that was contracted by a national government and to add value to their national security strategy and in order to bring an end to conflict in their countries if that's considered to be a pioneer in case we were talking about the south african government now we're talking about then government government why do you think people in your industry feel so sensitive to the word mercenary i think there are some people that feel sensitive towards it and i'm one of them. we don't see ourselves as mercenaries we 1st of all contracted by national government we become part of the armed forces we wear the uniforms we follow the procedures and guidelines we fall under the.

legal regulations of that country so in other words we serve their country that contracts us and yes we get paid for it but we certainly don't get paid to run around and cause chaos but according to all english dictionary use the word mercenary means and let me read it out a soldier who is paid to fight by the country by a country or group that they do not belong to and synonymous is a soldier of fortune. it's an interesting definition there are many soldiers who serve in armed forces of countries where they were not born and they are people serving in european armies that were born in africa are they most injuries the south african defense force recruited people during its pre 994 era that were born in different countries where those people most agrees so therefore i dispute the argument to me i see the client which is a government i am responsible for the main placed under my command and i am

accountable to that government i like our views that are being forced into wars by politicians you and your business you choose to go to war what is the fine line between the moral and the immoral especially in light of those accusations against some companies in your industry that tend to prolong wars to generate more money i'd like to go back and start of where your question ended 1st of all i have served in no country that is prolonged a war or a conflict in fact we have ended conflicts in very short space of time because that is the the mission that our government gives to us and then used to bring in into conflict in order to enable governance to be reestablished or negotiations to take place i think there is a fine line between moral and immoral but that really goes back to the people that are involved if you engage people in a country that will discipline that have no self-respect that do not respect people

they're going to commit deeds that are immoral and as far as we concerned we give an undertaking to a government that we will end the conflict and that is what we have done every time so we've never prolonged the conflict in fact we've ended them despite them carrying on for decades and decades we've ended them in a very short space of time but i am aware of companies that. do not mind if the conflict continues because that's the goose that lays the golden egg and they certainly don't want to stop it in spite of the successes you achieved your company achieved within that goal and set you on the 2 governments. countries they terminated the contracts of executive outcomes why do you think the 2 governments in spite of all these successes terminated your contracts well i think 1st of all angola where needs to bear in mind that if you read the contract which was awarded to us was initially a 12 month contract to train

a brigade in order to take the war to the enemy at that stage we need. to bring about an into are still ities that contract was extended for about 3 and a half years so they didn't in the contract they did in the contract assume is we need to have been defeated on the battlefield and they were under pressure from the united nations in particular who saw us as a threat possibly to their own deployments in angola the same applied to sierra leone that was a very vicious and brutal civil war that was ended in a very short space of time the serial only in government asked us to stay the world bank and i am if ever put pressure on them to get rid of us so that the un and other foreign forces could come in and in both instances by 3rd countries returned to war so i would argue exactly the opposite what that ever a serious in of the investigation by any of the intelligence service into the

accusations that you're your company executive outcome based yes there was. the 1st investigation took place in 1993 that was driven by the south african department of foreign of phase and encouraged by military intelligence as well as some white collar companies that were profiting off the illegal purchase of diamonds from rebel groups in that. the attorney general issued a statement to say that they are not there is no reason at all to actually take the matter further because the evidence laid before them was really nonexistent and then after executive outcomes closed its doors and there was a very lengthy intelligence report that was produced i don't know who produced it in which it actually found that all the accusations leveled against the company were false that a lot of them were malicious lies in order to slander the company and that there

was no further basis for investigation into the company besides the military on the combat services you say that your company provides also non-combat and nonmilitary services to your clients could you give us some examples yes for example in one month in 1995. we provided medical aid to more than a 1000 people of the local population living around one of our specific bases. we also provided in excess of 50000 liters of clean drinking water a day to the local people of course the seller huge impact on those who were importing bottled water and selling it to direct costs. we collected medicines from hospitals in south africa that were time expired those medicines were flown to angola in particular and our medical staff used those medicines on the sick and infirm in angola and of course that created huge problems so these are just some of

the examples would you walk us through the offense of boko haram offensive. was really not part of executive outcomes that was step internationally that actually partook in that offensive i need to 1st of all make it very clear that we were a subcontractor there was a prime contractor appointed that appointed us as a subcontractor and our initial i was not boko haram per se but it was too risky the ship docked girls. they were the girls that had been kidnapped and with their waste and response was hash tag save the girls. that type of nonsense does not save girls unfortunately these girls became victims of a situation where the security had broken down in a specific area they were kidnapped and that was the 1st mission to rescue the girls. within did a selection process of the nigerian soldiers the soldiers were detained after the

selection process within trained. in a very specific way to conduct a hostage rescue operation and that requires a very specific type of person. however approximately 5 or 6 weeks into the training of the hostage rescue team we were asked to change our mission and that mission was to go to a town called my degree in northeast nigeria that had come under severe threat of boko haram within rapidly and to transition what we were doing and suddenly china very offensive force with a minimum of equipment and we rushed to my degree we met with the 7th infantry division commander. we finally understood the pressures he was under and our suggestion was to him that this force we had trained which we named the 72nd mobile strike force would actually spearhead the division and that is precisely what we did the operation was into was in 3 phases. the 1st phase was to actually

cut a dividing line across northeastern nigeria and isolate boko haram into 2 defined areas and then mop up one area in the south was the start and after that was done mop up in the north the division would follow behind occupy to reign we would train the division in situ in defensive positions etc but we were never allowed to execute the entire operation so in month one month we took back to train larger than belgium from boko haram we were not allowed to finish because it came at a time when governments were in the process of changing i think president jonathan's government possibly saw the entire boko haram contract if we call it that almost as a as a last gasp in order to be gained popularity the incoming president president bari was heavily supported by a foreign government and one of the 1st missions was to terminate our contract

could you name that foreign government yes we were told it was the united states. and they had actually funded president baris campaign the campaign manager for president barak came from the us. and i'm not saying that the united states is bad i understand foreign interests but i would have thought that a threat such as boko haram on the integrity of the state of nigeria or to be actually a priority it wasn't. why do you think the u.s. would intervene to abort such operation again i can't answer that i think that the us can answer but what i've come to realize that is when a government's foreign interests clash with the state's own domestic interests conflict is bound to ensue and those conflicts usually just continue with no end and we can look at all the conflicts in africa where foreign forces of coming left prolonged those conflicts they haven't ended those conflicts and the amount of

money and manpower and equipment thrown at those conflicts seems to me then something is wrong if no injuries ulti is achieved and surely that result should be to end the conflict and establish a basis for negotiations come to an agreement and then reestablish governments but that's not what's happening in africa how much did you try the nigerian government well 1st of all we didn't charge the nigerian government and i think here there is a question the nigerian government can on so we will one subcontractor so in other words the nigerian government appointed a contractor and we contracted to that contract as they subcontractor so i think that's all i'll say if you're really interested in the figures that's for the nigerian government to discuss have you ever operated in sudan yes but i need to clarify it was southern sudan. we had a contract to train a very specialised group for the ugandan people's defense force and while the

training was ongoing in northwest uganda i was deployed to those are which was the home of the 4th infantry division. the ugandans in later redeployed me into the d r c 2. attach myself to one of the infantry battalions that was deployed they while the training for the special group was still ongoing i've been deployed with the special group into the d r c. late into the central african republic with the 2nd one and at this stage we went into an area which is very contentious known as dog food but i need to state that those movements across borders were all agreed to by the governments in question and that the governments in question authorized that ugandan troops could operate in those countries so in that sense yes of operated in sudan albeit mainly southern sudan so you had the approval of the sudanese government yes there would be the approval of the government because that was an agreement signed between or

partaken governments and that was to counter the lord's resistance army with the l r a it had its origins in uganda and it started as a similarly just movement and then transitioned into a movement i aimed purely a terrorizing the local population kidnapping of of young children and forcing them to become child soldiers. as the ugandan forces were combat in the lord's resistance army then moved into the l.r. a lot into the d r c forgive me and then into central african republic as well where they had for want of a better word bases in order to secure themselves our mission was really to track them down risk your child soldiers that had been deployed with him and to bring him into this campaign of terror conducted by the l r a mission was purely to be in a town called mazhar which is i'm of the 4th infantry we did not really lies or interact with the south sudanese forces will ever fall in this case the us.

and if so in which capacity. we were never involved in somalia per se but i can tell you that we were approached by a shipping company in the early days of the piracy we actually met with the pirates from il we met them in nairobi and we got to understand why they were pirates. between the pirates and ourselves we came to an agreement as to what would get them to stop being pirates when their proposal was submitted to the shipping company they were not interested in following it so i think one needs to understand that to go the way that we view this is that piracy is big business it's actually not what it appears to be it was not that we were hired for a long term we were contracted to come up with a proposal for them in order to come up with a coherent and sensible proposal we decided to meet the pirates because that's the best way to understand why they're pirates or the the end result of the meeting

with the pirates was something the shipping companies didn't want to accept and that is constant huge amount of money and life at the moment and piracy has now become a major problem out there despite what everyone saying and afghan cern is that it is not only confined to somalia it's moved down south it's moved north and it's starting very very viciously on the west coast of africa when you speak to the pirates and i'm speaking of in the early days i'm not speaking of now. fishing stocks had been depleted because of toxic waste dump in off the coast. and these were fishermen. and they knew the sea that understood the sea and they full once the fish were gone the next fish to catch was a ship. and that is what they did however this is transitioned into a major business now where every ship that appears to be vulnerable or weak is targeted by them for capture. how do you explain the seemingly pair of the many

western countries out hunting down your contracts while at the same time seeking your expertise by inviting you to lecture in the war colleges in the us russia czech republic and many other countries. i think 1st of all i don't see a problem at all with people wanting to exploit the knowledge base that we've built up we are after all africans who work in africa but i do think there is a major concern that africans can actually end african conflict. if you have a look at the conflicts in africa the most recent being in mozambique and we see the dismal performance of a private military company to me that doesn't hold any good what are they doing there if they're not going to add value and bring about a sense of stability and peace then they shouldn't be there but unfortunately this is being allowed to drag on there are countries that have had private military

companies operating there for years along with national armed forces yet the problems never go away they actually seem to intensify and these are things that really concern me. in terms of knowledge we've built up a huge knowledge base we are africans we are not only from south africa but we are from many african countries as part of step as we had in executive outcomes. we understand the culture we understand the traditions of people we can converse with them. and we look at all these private military companies going into africa they just charge and they don't understand the environment that in they don't understand the area of operations they don't understand the people and very quickly there fend the people and oftentimes the people become collateral damage because of the poor way in which they are approached and all that does is it really just lengthens the conflict. recently published a book titled the composer warfare. what is the composition of warfare

and. did you just feel rice on this or was it based on your field experience will it's titled compass it will fit the conduct of successful operations in africa and i wrote that book explicitly for african on these because i think the time has come for many african armies to realize the doctrine that they're using does not work in their countries it's been proven over and over again and if you really look at doctrine we're looking at british colonies apply british doctrine french colonies upright french doctrine. these doctrines don't work most of them come from world war 2 they've never been updated revaluated and besides doctrine is related to the training which you operating in doctrine tells you how to do things it does not dictate what you should do in other words doctrine will tell you that if you need to go and drink

a glass of water you get up you walk to the cupboard you take a glass you fill it up with water and you drink it doesn't tell you which route to take it doesn't tell you which class to take it doesn't tell you which tap to take your water from that just an example of doctrine so we have this mess of mismatch of doctrine versus the terrain versus the enemy or the threat. and these templates that are being super imposed on africa are failing wherever they're trying to be superimposed on. i know of no great success which tells me that there is something very very wrong with the doctrine. last summer there was a frenzy recruitment in pretoria. by men who posed as a representative of your company your step. the goal was to get combat zones to fight for the libyan rebel leader after why did blackwater have to impersonate its tip and did you take any legal action against like water well

1st of all we took no legal action against anyone because we didn't have proof of who it really was. we were aware that there were south africans trying to recruit in fact it was an office set up not too far from where we are at the moment that claimed that they were step international and they were recruiting people for libya and we mediately expose them and we expose them in the media which ironically the media did for once publish. and we went looking for these people but they moved their office very quickly we then put a warning out to everyone who we know not to agree with these people not to sign contracts because as soon as a contractor started lying about who he is he's going to be lying to that government that he's trying to get a contract from so we will not tolerate people using our name if you were offered a contract to fight for half that would you have agreed when asked that question

often. we cannot fight full force and anti government forces actually trying to overthrow a un recognized government and we will support any un recognized government as long as they are not the perpetrators of acts of violence against a population and we've turned down contracts from you in recognised governments but where that government has acted in a very evil way toward people let's talk more about money is that the only thing that would get you to accept a contract and what jobs you have turned down 1st of all let's start with what we've turned down i'm not going to go through the whole list but i will take you back to a country which was known as the here and now known as the democratic republic of congo. where the previous president tossed us to get involved in assassinating one of his ministers and who is the president. we will continue our conversation with even barlow on the next episode of talk to al jazeera.

i hope does not tell. a compelling film about getting an education under occupation. that is once the been of the guidebook that it asked us if you don't feel sick you want them to come frankly we don't feel secure but we come. but what happened after the cameras left rewind learning to die on al-jazeera. was the last time you were out on the streets protesting whether on line you feel the weight of the system going to walk through each and every loved billboard layer further and further into the jail or if you join us on say please entry has to start from day one whether again you and attention or your own participants this is a dialogue everyone has

a voice so far there are studies that support a rush coverage will be varying accounts but i want to give people the reason for joining the global conversation on how does iraq. and. al jazeera. where. more than 10 years after the global financial crisis you've taken home more than $480000000.00 your company is now bankrupt our economy is in the state of crisis kind of a very basic question this is where millions lost their homes in the u.s.

. who's held responsible i will be fabulously wealthy and i will not be in christ for thank the lord the men who still live on al-jazeera. he's impossibles way to state the mental scarring of the survivors which. lived in the home until the age of 4 when the nuns sold him all to yvonne and family by the time he'd lost his system she like nearly 800 others had the name recorded in a death threat just a catholic organization put bodies in here there were baptized. on conservation grounds savages. become painters think the government is so frightened of the damage to the church that the full excavation would do that it is resisting it's so they're threatening court action i think the only way in which this will be result is strewn in order of the spirit courts of this

country i can't see any other way because there is no will there's no wish there is no appetite church and state in this country is still in a poisonous pact. his reign of terror is over donald trump says he acted to stop a war with iran stop by ordering the airstrike that killed top iranian general. iran's supreme leader delivers his condolences to sell the body's family and his warning severe revenge for whites those responsible. brought the soldiers here alive from. yet another state of emergency declared in southeastern australia where tapestry conditions.