A mercenary, also called a merc, soldier of fortune, or hired gun, is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests.
Fragging is the deliberate or attempted killing of a soldier, usually a superior, by a fellow soldier. U.S. military personnel coined the word during the Vietnam War, when such killings were most often committed or attempted with a fragmentation grenade, to make it appear that the killing was accidental or during combat with the enemy. The term fragging now encompasses any deliberate killing of military colleagues.
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan revolutionary, politician, and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA was one of several groups which waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974. Once independence was achieved, it then became an anti-communist group which confronted the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi had extensive contact with anti-communist activists in the United States, including Jack Abramoff and was one of the leading anti-communist voices in the world. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.
The National Front for the Liberation of Angola is a political party and former militant organisation that fought for Angolan independence from Portugal in the war of independence, under the leadership of Holden Roberto.
Peter McAleese was a Scottish soldier and mercenary.
The Angolan War of Independence, known as the Armed Struggle of National Liberation in Angola, was a war of independence fought between the Angolan nationalist forces of the MPLA, UNITA and FNLA, and Portugal. It began as an uprising by Angolans against the Portuguese imposition of forced cultivation of only cotton as a commodity crop. As the resistance spread against colonial authorities, multiple factions developed that struggled for control of Portugal's overseas province of Angola. There were three nationalist movements and also a separatist movement.
Costas Georgiou, also known by his alias Colonel Callan, was a Cypriot-born British court-martialled-soldier-turned-mercenary who was executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial for activities during the civil war phase of the Angolan War of Independence.
The Luanda Trial was a trial held in Luanda, Angola, in June 1976 during the Angolan Civil War. Thirteen Western mercenaries were sentenced to either long prison terms or execution by firing squad.
Álvaro Holden Roberto was an Angolan politician who founded and led the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) from 1962 to 1999.
Jean "Black Jack" Schramme was a Belgian mercenary and planter. He managed a vast estate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo until 1967.
Operation Savannah was the South African code name for their military incursion into Angola in 1975–1976. It was part of the South African Border War and arose due to the Angolan War of Independence. The operation also materially influenced the subsequent Angolan Civil War. South African forces invaded deep into Angola with the objective of driving the MPLA, Soviet and Cuban forces out of southern Angola so as to strengthen the position of UNITA, the main opponent of the MPLA and an ally of South Africa.
The Alvor Agreement, signed on 15 January 1975 in Alvor, Portugal, granted Angola independence from Portugal on 11 November and formally ended the 13-year-long Angolan War of Independence.
The Battle of Quifangondo was fought on 10 November 1975, near the strategic settlement of Quifangondo, Luanda Province, between the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), armed wing of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and the National Liberation Army of Angola (ELNA), armed wing of the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA). The engagement marked the first major deployment of rocket artillery in the Angolan Civil War, as well as the last serious attempt by ELNA forces to seize Luanda, the Angolan capital. It occurred on the last day of Portuguese colonial rule in the country, which formally received independence only hours later.
The trial and conviction of Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland followed their arrest in May 2009, and their being charged with killing their hired driver, 47-year-old Abedi Kasongo, on May 5, 2009, at Bafwasende, Tshopo District, Orientale Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. French was arrested on May 9 in the Epulu game reserve, around 200 kilometres (120 mi) from Kisangani. Moland was arrested two days later in the Ituri Province, a few hundred kilometres farther northeast.
George Washington Bacon III was an American soldier and intelligence officer. He served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army, Paramilitary Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and finally as a mercenary soldier.
Gary Martin Acker was an American mercenary who was sentenced to 16 years in prison during the Luanda Trial, of which he served 7.
John Edward Banks is a British former soldier, mercenary recruiter, and the founder of the Security Advisory Services.
Security Advisory Services was a British private military company founded by Leslie Aspin, an arms dealer, John Banks, a former paratrooper of the British Army, and Frank Perren, a former Royal Marine, in order to recruit mercenaries for military operations abroad. In 1976, the company massively hired paid soldiers to fight in the Angolan Civil War, which was the biggest mercenary recruitment operation in Britain since the Nigerian Civil War at the end of the 1960s.
Mercenaries in Angola are foreigners who participated in the Angolan Civil War on the side of the MPLA or the rebels, but were not personnel military of the interventionist states. Initially, the hired specialists were dominated by immigrants from western countries and "first world" states, such as the United States, UK, Ireland, France, Portugal and South Africa. In the 1990s, they were displaced by natives of the former Soviet Republics, mainly Russians and Ukrainians.
