Besides founding the private military outfit in 2012, 79-year-old Adnan Tanriverdi also served as a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan between 2016 and 2020.

A brigadier general whose service ended during a purge of Islamic influence from the traditionally secular military in 1996, Tanriverdi founded SADAT International Defence Consultancy in 2012.

SADAT came under international scrutiny over its stealth role in promoting Turkey's interests abroad, although Tanriverdi's son and the company's current chief Melih Tanriverdi told AFP in 2021 that it had "nothing to do with being a mercenary organisation".

On its website, the company's manifesto says it aims "to establish a Defense Collaboration and Defense Industry Cooperation among Islamic Countries to help (the) Islamic World take the place where it merits among Superpowers".

Its span of proposed operations stretches from North Africa to the Middle East and parts of central and southeast Asia.

An AFP investigation in May revealed that SADAT was responsible for recruiting pro-Turkish mercenaries from Syria and sending them to Niger to protect Turkish interests and projects, particularly mines.

And in 2020, the United States said that SADAT had sent teams to Libya to train Syrian fighters supporting the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center also said that SADAT was "responsible for the international air transport of mercenaries" to Libya and Azerbaijan, then at war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

When questioned in May, the Turkish defence ministry told AFP that "all these allegations are false and have no truth".