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you. In

0:22

Libya, there's a very particular military

0:24

training camp. It's

0:26

run by former members of the Irish

0:28

Defence Forces. They're

0:31

employed by a company called Irish

0:33

Training Solutions. And they're not

0:35

training the official Libyan army that's recognised

0:37

internationally by other states. Instead,

0:40

the company provides military

0:42

training for a rogue army,

0:44

headed by Libyan strongman Khalifa

0:46

Haftar. Heroes,

0:50

the time has come. It

0:53

is time to advance. Irish

0:55

Times Europe correspondent Naomi O'Leary has

0:58

been investigating the company and its

1:00

operations in the volatile African country.

1:03

They were teaching snipers, they

1:06

were doing reconnaissance, machine

1:08

gun support, also stuff like

1:10

how to storm buildings, how to launch an

1:12

assault on houses, how to clear rooms, that

1:15

kind of thing. These

1:17

men are no longer in the Irish

1:19

army, yet some of them are wearing

1:21

Irish flags and patches from their former

1:24

units on their camouflage. So

1:27

this is an issue. Clearly it might be

1:29

difficult for an outside observer to distinguish whether

1:31

these were real Irish forces or not,

1:34

since they might look to the untrained eye like they

1:36

are. And it's also

1:39

an apparent breach of a UN

1:41

arms embargo, which prohibits the supply

1:43

of weapons and military training to

1:45

Libya. Tonister Mihal

1:47

Martin, who's also Minister for Defence,

1:49

has called the revelations deeply shocking,

1:52

saying they cause reputational damage

1:54

to Ireland and our defence

1:56

forces. This is

1:58

in the news from the Irish Times. I'm Bernice

2:00

Harrison. Today, how

2:03

former Irish soldiers are training a

2:05

Libyan militia. Naomi

2:14

O'Leary, welcome to the podcast. Hi,

2:17

thanks for having me on. So Naomi,

2:19

we're going to be talking about a

2:21

company called Irish

2:23

Training Solutions. Who

2:25

are the people behind this company and

2:28

what sort of training solutions do

2:31

they advertise? So Irish

2:33

Training Solutions is an awfully based

2:35

Irish company with three directors, Nigel

2:38

McCormack, Danny Kloski and Darren Kelly.

2:42

And it's founded by former

2:44

members of Defence Forces and

2:46

Ireland's elite Army Rangers Wing.

2:49

They offer training, for example, to people. They

2:53

do training and stuff like security and post

2:55

protection. But over

2:58

the past year, since January 2023, they

3:00

seem to have expanded into something quite different.

3:03

So your report has revealed that

3:06

Irish Training Solutions has been providing

3:08

training to the Army of

3:10

a military strongman called Khalifa

3:12

Haftar, who rules over a

3:14

large part of Libya. So

3:17

let's take a very brief detour

3:19

here. For the purposes

3:22

of what we're talking about today, what

3:24

do we need to know about the situation

3:26

in Libya now and the role of

3:28

this strongman, Khalifa Haftar?

3:31

The road to Tripoli. This

3:34

is General Haftar's self-starred militia. It's

3:37

substantial and it's moving west in a

3:39

bid to take the capital. So

3:41

Libya is currently divided between

3:44

two rival administrations. Haftar

3:48

controls much of the east and

3:50

south of the country, along

3:52

with his sons, who he's placing

3:54

in senior positions,

3:56

powerful positions within his army, which

3:58

is called the than Libyan National

4:01

Army or that's how it's usually known

4:03

as abroad. And then

4:05

there's the government in Tripoli, which

4:07

is opposed to him. And that's the

4:09

official government that's recognised by the United

4:11

Nations. There was a civil

4:14

war in Libya that raged for years up until

4:16

the ceasefire in 2020. And

4:18

during that period of conflict, Haftar

4:21

tried to conquer Tripoli with his

4:23

forces. He wasn't successful in doing

4:25

that. For Libyans,

4:27

this is another escalation in a long

4:29

and gritty power struggle. Conflict

4:31

has rumbled on since the fall of Muammar

4:34

Gaddafi in 2011, with

4:36

militias vying for power and control of

4:38

Libya's oil. He's backed

4:40

by some international powers, the

4:43

United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and

4:45

to a certain extent Russia. So

4:47

the Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group, who

4:50

are present in many parts of Africa,

4:53

are present in key

4:55

strategic locations in Haftar's territory, and

4:57

they've lent him support at different

4:59

times. It's in that

5:01

context that there is currently an

5:03

arms embargo on Libya that

5:05

was approved by the

5:07

UN Security Council way back in

5:10

2011 that prohibits the supply

5:12

of weapons in an attempt

5:14

to stop Libya from descending

5:17

into rival warring factions, which is

5:19

really what has happened. So

5:25

Naomi, we now know that this

5:27

Irish company has

5:29

been training the army of this

5:31

Libyan strongman, Khalifa Haftar. What's

5:35

your understanding of what

5:37

happens in these training camps? What kind

5:39

of training is involved? What

5:41

Irish Training Solutions was invited to do

5:43

was to train a particular

5:45

division of the Libyan National Army called

5:48

the 166th Infantry Brigade.

5:50

Their ground forces, the

5:53

job that Irish Training Solutions was given was

5:55

to take a few

5:58

scores of these guys and train them. them

6:00

up to be like a special operations

6:02

force unit. They were teaching

6:04

snipers, they had, you

6:07

know, they were doing reconnaissance, machine

6:09

gun support, also stuff like how

6:11

to storm buildings, how to launch

6:14

an assault on houses, how to clear rooms,

6:16

that kind of thing. I have

6:18

a lot of photos and video footage of

6:20

this and it shows a lot of practice

6:22

in like a shooting range, which

6:25

has been dug out of the ground

6:27

in Libya. All of

6:29

this was overseen, I suppose,

6:31

by the son of Khalifa Shastar. So

6:33

that's Drangman who we were talking about.

6:36

He's 80 years old. It seems that

6:38

he's seeking to transfer over power to

6:40

a certain extent to his sons. The

6:43

son who's considered the real rising power

6:45

now in Libya is called Saddam Haftar.

6:48

He's his youngest son and he was

6:51

the guy who I'm told was overseeing

6:53

this program. Saddam Haftar

6:55

came to view like a

6:57

demonstration of the 166th Infantry

6:59

Battalion where they showed us everything

7:01

they'd learned from Irish training solutions

7:04

in a live fire demonstration. You

7:06

can see pictures of that. They were released by

7:09

the Libyan National Army. So this

7:11

training took place in 2023,

7:14

culminating in this demonstration or

7:16

show and I'm told that the contract

7:18

was renewed again for large film

7:20

over £8 million for 2024 and it

7:24

has begun again this year. So

7:27

the training is ongoing right now?

7:29

That's my understanding, yes. In

7:32

the photos you just mentioned there of

7:34

the training taking place, can you see

7:37

any Irish people involved in it? Yeah.

7:40

So we can see some of the members,

7:42

like some of the directors of Irish training

7:44

solutions were actually there. So

7:46

Danny Klosky, who's the director and

7:49

co-owns the company, he is seen in

7:51

a number of photos wearing

7:53

combat fatigues on the ground

7:55

in Libya and he's wearing a

7:57

number of badges which are identifiable for him.

8:00

example, on his shoulder,

8:02

he's wearing the patches or flashes of

8:05

his former unit in the Irish

8:07

Army, the Army Rangers wing.

8:09

So they have a

8:11

badge called the Finnowglock and another badge

8:14

which is like their logo. And

8:16

he's wearing both of them on his arm, which

8:18

is quite serious because it leads

8:21

to a potential risk of confusion with genuine

8:23

Irish forces in an overseas conflict where Ireland

8:25

isn't actually involved. So this

8:28

is an issue. I've spoken to

8:30

sources close to the defence forces about

8:32

this. It's a

8:34

real problem if Ireland is perceived to

8:36

be competent

8:39

in an overseas conflict. Clearly,

8:42

it might be difficult for an outside observer

8:44

to distinguish whether these were real Irish

8:47

forces or not, since they might look to the

8:49

untrained eye like they are, particularly

8:51

if they're wearing some kind of uniform. So

8:54

this, I'm told, could pose danger

8:57

to genuine Irish troops. There are

8:59

Irish troops out in Africa on

9:01

different missions, usually peacekeeping

9:04

missions, but they could be perceived

9:06

now as being non-neutral actors that

9:08

were on a particular side of

9:11

the conflict. There's also

9:13

a video, and we've put that video up

9:15

on the Irish Times site as well. It's

9:17

a short video. It's

9:19

in the style of a

9:21

movie trailer with, you know, action

9:24

movie music and graphics.

9:26

Now, there's no voiceover, but

9:28

text does appear on

9:31

the screen. And Naomi, for

9:33

the benefit of our listeners now, could

9:36

you tell us what it says? Yeah,

9:39

sure. So this video starts with like

9:41

a mock production company start.

9:43

So we think like a frozen mountain

9:46

with a round of stars. And

9:50

Then it reads, leaving behind their

9:52

homeland, four young men set out

9:54

to discover a world of adventure.

9:56

Summer 2023. And

10:01

then what? We see our images of

10:03

men in army camouflage gear in this

10:05

desert training camp setting and the hip

10:07

that are doing target practice and there

10:09

wasn't smiling and put posing for photograph.

10:12

The tax continues and it gives some

10:14

of the names of the men so

10:16

it's as Darren. The dogs are Charlie

10:18

for example and Danny Eat the likes

10:20

of team Danny Chluski have seen at

10:22

this point shooting what seems to be

10:25

some kind of automatic rifle I'm in

10:27

the target range it gives a couple

10:29

of other names will lengthen. Foods and

10:31

they be in summer split. A

10:34

senator to react the you memento

10:36

that they've made. Of the training

10:38

that took place last year, When

10:40

I'm into seems like a haven't a good

10:42

time up there it would seem. So I

10:45

mean my impression on seeing this video is

10:47

that they to think it's really cool what

10:49

they're doing on them mean these guys with

10:51

army experience and maybe they miss being overseas

10:54

in the excitement of the weapons and you

10:56

know the kind of contact so it really

10:58

seems like they're enjoying themselves that they're. Coming.

11:01

Up a big money to be

11:04

made, training rogue armies in Libya

11:06

or continue my conversation with nail

11:08

me leery after this sort. This

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a jury products.i used to see

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how we can make your workplace

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work for you. Naomi.

11:40

Do we know how much. I

11:42

was training solutions. Are

11:44

being paid for These services. Their

11:46

contract and Twenty Twenty Three was paid

11:49

as in two installments of Four Point

11:51

Six Million and Six Point Seven million

11:53

and then it was renewed at Eight

11:55

Point Four Million and Twenty Twenty Four

11:57

and cities a substantial amounts. distinguish

12:00

however between the amounts being earned by

12:02

this company and the amounts being earned

12:05

by the trainers on the ground. 300

12:08

euro a day which isn't very much

12:10

for this kind of work. This is

12:12

pretty risky and so they're definitely not

12:14

getting rich off this. It's

12:17

worth noting as well that

12:19

halfway through this training course

12:21

last year the source of

12:23

salaries changed. So previously they were being

12:26

paid by the Irish company and then

12:28

after that the source of the salaries

12:30

changed to become, to start

12:32

coming from a company that was

12:34

based in Dubai in the United

12:36

Arab Emirates called SOF training. SOF

12:38

is a common military acronym that

12:41

stands for Special Operations Forces. What

12:43

they were told it was due to

12:45

it was for tax benefits reasons but

12:47

their interpretation was that this was also

12:50

to sort of try and avoid

12:53

any potential crackdown by Irish authorities

12:55

if this stuff was going to

12:57

be discovered. As you said this army

12:59

in Libya it's

13:01

not the official army of the country.

13:04

Khalifa Haftar's leadership is

13:07

not universally recognized internationally

13:09

as a legitimate political

13:11

force in Libya. Is

13:15

it permitted for an Irish company

13:17

to provide military training to such

13:19

an army? So the issue

13:21

is as I mentioned there's been a

13:23

UN arms embargo in

13:26

place on Libya since 2011.

13:29

The idea of the arms embargo

13:31

was to prevent the degeneration of

13:33

the country into a patchwork of

13:35

warring fiefdoms because all

13:37

these different factions were getting international assistance

13:39

on weapons or flowing into the country and

13:41

the idea was to stop that. Now under

13:43

the text of this UN arms embargo which

13:46

was agreed by the Security Council it says

13:49

quote that it forbids quote technical

13:52

assistance training financial

13:54

or other assistance related to military

13:56

activities. So training is quite explicitly

13:59

banned. It also

14:01

prohibits the provision of quote arms and

14:03

related material of all types and I'm

14:06

also told by several people familiar

14:09

with the situation that Irish training

14:11

solutions brought in material for the

14:13

training uniforms and

14:15

gear stuff like you know

14:17

combat fatigues helmets body armour

14:21

boots backpacks that kind of thing. So

14:24

you know under this UN

14:26

arms embargo the state of Ireland

14:28

has an obligation to enforce it

14:32

so that would include preventing

14:34

any potential breaches by national

14:36

companies. Companies are also you

14:39

know if they are providing services in

14:41

Libya they're required to check that

14:43

it's not in conflict with any domestic legislation

14:45

that's enforcing the UN arms embargo. During

14:50

the course of my reporting it emerged that

14:52

this may be a wider issue going beyond

15:08

Irish training solutions. There's actually

15:11

a number of Western companies that are doing these

15:13

kind of training sessions and

15:15

they've each been assigned like a different part

15:18

of half-darts army. Some

15:20

specialising for example in let's say

15:23

parachuting or you know

15:25

they might take on another specialty and

15:27

they come from European countries including Italy,

15:30

Spain, from Australia as well. So

15:33

it seems that you know the potential fighting

15:35

or the apparent fighting of the UN arms

15:37

embargo is potentially

15:39

quite widespread. Naomi

15:42

you pointed out that the Irish

15:44

Defence Forces has itself been active

15:46

in the enforcement of

15:48

this embargo. Isn't that the case? Part

15:51

of the reason why this is embarrassing

15:53

to Irish authorities is because right as

15:55

this training was getting underway in 2023

15:58

Ireland was actually sending naval

16:01

ship, the L.E. William Butler

16:03

Yates, to patrol the

16:05

waters off Libya to enforce

16:07

the UN arms embargo. The primary

16:10

focus of Operation Irene is to

16:12

enforce the arms embargo on Libya.

16:15

We go on board where we have suspicion

16:17

that there's contraband

16:20

being transported. We search the vessel

16:23

and then ultimately detain it and bring

16:25

it into board for further inspection. The

16:28

idea was that this ship would

16:30

be intercepting illicit shipments of arms

16:33

and also helping to deal with

16:36

migrant boat crossings as well. So

16:38

it would appear that this environment

16:41

by Irish company is directly contrary to the

16:43

policy of the Irish State at the time.

16:46

It particularly raises questions given

16:48

the apparently close links of

16:50

members of this company to the

16:53

Defence Forces and particularly the Army Rangers wing,

16:55

given that they're former members and

16:57

according to my reporting they sought

16:59

to recruit people out of the

17:01

Irish Army and out of the

17:03

Rangers wing. Some of them I'm

17:06

told were still on leave or very recently

17:08

discharged at periods where they would have still

17:10

been covered by military law. So

17:14

we've talked about how this

17:16

type of activity may be in

17:18

breach of the embargo and we've also talked about

17:21

the potential for a sort of negative

17:23

impact on Ireland's reputation

17:25

overseas. The fact that

17:28

this activity may be seen

17:30

as having kind of a seal of

17:32

approval of the Irish State when in fact I

17:34

mean it doesn't and

17:37

that it may endanger

17:39

the safety of Irish

17:41

soldiers on genuine missions

17:43

elsewhere. There's also an ethical dimension

17:45

isn't there? I mean you've touched on it.

17:48

What is the impact of

17:50

the involvement of these sorts

17:53

of professional military training outfits

17:56

on the situation in Libya? It can

17:58

be difficult for two reports. within Libya

18:01

itself and what we

18:03

do know is that the country is very

18:05

divided. The people of Libya have been

18:07

denied a sort of normal country for

18:09

a long time now with conflict and

18:12

the prevention of the holding of elections

18:14

and so on and what we've heard

18:17

from repeated reports from UN experts is

18:20

that it's the involvement of international

18:22

powers and private military

18:24

contractors as well that

18:26

are responsible for prolonging this conflict because

18:28

of the flow of weapons. It

18:31

makes the conflict more difficult to

18:34

resolve because it gets tied up

18:36

with other international rivalries

18:39

like out of Russia and Turkey and Syria

18:41

for example and it all

18:43

gets drawn into this struggle for influence and

18:45

power in Libya and in wider

18:47

northern Africa as well. You

18:59

contacted Irish Training Solutions

19:02

for comment about all this.

19:04

Has anyone responded? Yeah

19:06

of course I've been calling them

19:08

and messaging them almost

19:10

every day and trying to

19:13

get responses. I did speak to Danny

19:15

Klusky, I called him, he

19:17

picked up the phone somewhere which sounded rather

19:20

far away. I explained that you know I

19:22

had this story and I talked him through

19:24

all the details of everything that we've just

19:26

been through and I asked him would he

19:28

like to challenge any of those details or

19:30

would he like to comment in any way

19:32

at all and he said I have nothing

19:34

to say about that and

19:36

that was the extent of our conversation he just

19:38

got into comment. But he was

19:41

fully informed of everything and I also followed up

19:43

with numerous messages to him to give

19:45

him a chance to comment if he wanted

19:47

to. Naomi this is definitely

19:50

far more than just embarrassing

19:52

for the Irish Defence Forces.

19:55

Tonish De Mihal Martin he's the Minister for

19:57

Defence, he has responded to your story and

19:59

he's got a lot of questions. called your revelations deeply

20:01

shocking, saying that they

20:04

cause reputational damage to Ireland and

20:06

our defence forces. Now that is

20:08

very, very strong. You contacted, obviously

20:10

in the course of your research

20:12

for this story, the

20:14

defence forces. I can read

20:17

out their response in full. So in

20:19

response to my questions, the defence forces

20:21

said, the defence forces

20:23

cannot confirm the identity of individuals serving

20:25

or who may have served in the

20:27

Army Ranger link for reasons of

20:29

both state and personal security. Oakley

20:32

Mayron, can you confirm to

20:34

save individuals named in your query or

20:36

are no longer serving in the defence forces? The

20:39

information you have recruited to discuss this personnel

20:42

under Section 37.1

20:44

and 37.5 of the Freedom of

20:46

Information Act. So essentially they're saying this. They

20:48

can't really tell us about dates of discharge

20:51

or confirm, whether the people who are named

20:53

to me as either

20:55

very recent or ongoing

20:58

members of the defence forces were moonlighting

21:01

in Libya at the same time as they

21:03

were either covered by military law or were

21:05

using periods of leave in defence forces. So that's

21:07

as far as I've gotten with them. But

21:09

I'm hoping they'll be a little bit more forthcoming in

21:11

the future. What is

21:13

drawing former Irish

21:16

soldiers to this

21:18

work, to become trainers in

21:21

Libya? What does it say,

21:23

I suppose, about

21:26

our defence forces that

21:29

they would end up doing this kind

21:31

of work? I think

21:33

that something that it does show is it

21:36

does reflect some of the structural issues that there

21:38

are in Ireland with the defence forces in terms

21:40

of low pay on poor career

21:43

prospects after being

21:45

discharged. The fact that guys

21:47

might be looking for work like this and there

21:49

might be enough people to try and

21:51

take it up. I do

21:53

also think there's an aspect of adventurism as

21:56

well. You can really see that in the

21:58

photos and particularly the video. where

22:00

it seems like some of

22:02

these guys have had high

22:05

adrenaline careers with statuses as

22:07

exciting soldiers shooting weapons,

22:09

things like that. And for some of

22:11

them, it's attractive to be able to

22:13

repeat an experience like that. And I

22:15

think you can see that in how

22:18

they were taking photos and stuff. There's

22:21

just one last thing I have to ask you about, and

22:23

that's a very interesting detail in

22:25

this story. And that's that the

22:27

Irish Training Solutions Company, they're

22:30

not the only organization providing these kinds

22:32

of services to Khalifa Haftar. Also

22:35

present in Libya in these training

22:37

camps is the Wagner Group, this

22:40

infamous Russian mercenary group

22:42

that has played such a big role

22:45

in the war in Ukraine. You reported

22:47

there's some sort of skirmish between the

22:50

Irish former soldiers, the trainers,

22:53

and Wagner. What happened? Yeah, so

22:56

Wagner troops, they are mercenaries

22:58

from Russia. They are

23:00

present in many African countries. Sometimes they're

23:02

seen as a kind of covert arm

23:05

of Russian foreign policy. What

23:07

they do is essentially provide security

23:09

to strong men, mostly in Africa

23:12

in return for the rights to

23:14

exploit natural resources, like logging rights

23:16

or drilling rights, mining rights, that

23:18

kind of thing. So they

23:20

are heavily present throughout Haftar's territory,

23:22

and they've played a very important role

23:24

in supporting Haftar at different points. On

23:27

two occasions, Wagner forces shoot

23:29

towards the Irish Training

23:32

Solutions trainers while they were doing their work. And

23:35

on the second occasion, one of the Irish

23:37

Training Solutions guys returned fire at

23:39

the Wagner forces. Why

23:42

this happened? We can only speculate. I

23:45

mean, technically they are on Haftar's side,

23:47

so you'd wonder why they would be

23:49

hostile to the Irish Training

23:51

Solutions guys. But it could be that

23:53

they see them as rivals for getting

23:55

military contracts, for example. That could

23:57

be one potential explanation. the

24:01

idea of them exchanging fire

24:03

with these guys, some

24:05

of whom may have been wearing Irish tricolour

24:07

patches. This really underscores

24:10

the risk of having people

24:12

overseas in uniforms

24:14

that might suggest that they're

24:17

affiliated with Ireland or some

24:20

kind of irregular, regular Irish forces. It

24:23

really shows the risk of the

24:25

impression of Ireland, particularly Ireland's neutrality being

24:27

compromised in a situation like this.