The burgeoning demand for UK-led private security firms in the Middle East

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Andreas Krieg, a security analyst at King’s College London who has taken part in military training programmes in the Gulf, agreed: “The problem in the Middle East is that there’s never been a state monopoly on violence. They’ve always outsourced certain security functions to non-state actors.

“Many of the militias we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan – sometimes with sectarian interests – have rebranded themselves commercially as security companies.”

However, British private security firms vehemently shun the term “mercenary”, which Krieg said does not apply to them “at all”.

Period	11 Jan 2020
Held at	The Telegraph, United Kingdom