Mercenary?

This is coolbert:

The chickens are coming home to roost! At least they are in Libya. Thanks to RIANovosti.

Scores are being settled, those complicit with the regime of the Colonel being taught a lesson they will never forget.

In this case MERCENARIES REPUTED TO HAVE FOUGHT FOR THE COLONEL!

"Libya Jails Russian, Ukrainian pro-Gaddafi Mercenaries"

Men however, described a mercenaries but not as that term mercenary commonly, generally, and normally understood! Or are they?

"MOSCOW, June 4 (RIA Novosti) – A Libyan military court handed down on Monday long prison terms to a group of men from former Soviet republics on charges that they worked to repair military equipment for the Middle East country’s late strongman leader, Muammar Gaddafi"

NOT persons picking up a weapon and firing in combat with the intention to kill. Seems these folks are maintenance personnel for the most part, if not exclusively, and NOT combat arms.

Persons nonetheless apparently indeed in the pay of the Colonel, and mercenaries in that sense as the origin of the word would suggest, mercenary as desiring payment for services rendered in the military sphere, of whatever nature.

Lots of eastern Europeans having marketable skills as maintenance types, working on military gear of a complex nature, or even perhaps combat arms as well.

From that era immediately after the end of the apartheid government in South Africa, mercenaries in the employment of Sandline and Executive Outcomes from the recent history as applicable to those individuals fighting on the battlefield in the traditional manner!

The Colonel too for a long time employing the services of the CIA renegade case officer Edwin Wilson. Wilson recruiting Americans and using same to train an entire generation of disreputables arcane and secret arts all having a military application, quite often deadly.

Made that hard bed and now having to sleep on it? Good luck!

coolbert.