For a salary of $1,500, Abed is preparing to leave northern Syria to join hundreds of other pro-Turkish fighters in West Africa's Niger, the new Eldorado for Syrian mercenaries. "I am forced to go in order to secure our livelihood (...) Here I would die for 1,000 Turkish liras ($30), and there (in Niger, ed.) I would die for $1,500, he says. Abed says he had enlisted for Niger with the Sultan Murad faction, one of Turkey's most loyal proxies in northern Syria. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES