They are responsible for the most terrible atrocities, rapes, mutilations, violence against injured people and prisoners: mercenaries hired by staggering regimes have been seen in former Yugoslavia, in Darfur, in Iraq.

And now they are also in Libya, enlisted by Muammar Gaddafi to stop the advance of the uprising. Most of them are Africans but some are from Europe. And there are also Italian mercenaries.

''At least four or five Italians are active in Libya as mercenaries in the ranks of Gaddafi's militias'', an anonymous former serviceman told ANSA. The source has been working as ''private security agent'' for years in several crisis areas.

''I personally know these people and I know that they left in the past days'', he continued, without saying whether they have left individually or if they are 'under contract' with some organisation: ''I won't say anything else", he added, ''these things should not be made public''.

The Libyan opposition website Al Manara, based abroad, also states that there are Italians among the pro-Gaddafi mercenaries. The ones who were captured yesterday by the rebels after attacking the city of Zawia, on the coast west of Tripoli where violent clashes were staged yesterday, ''there are Libyans but also other Arab and European nationalities, including Italians and people from Eastern Europe'', Al Manara's Facebook page reads.

The news of the presence of mercenaries in Libya, including Italians, ''worries'' the Vice President of the Italian Senate Emma Bonino. She sent links to some YouTube videos to her colleagues in Senate. These videos reportedly show ''the presence of many mercenaries hired by the regime''.

In one of these videos, made by Al Jazeera, there is talk of airplanes full of militias flown in from the southern part of the continent. ''More airplanes are arriving from Chad and Sudan, headed for Fezzan'', the Libyan reporter Farid Adly said. Yesterday Adly participated in a protest in Rome against the Libyan regime.

Mohammed Abuelgasin, a refugee from Darfur and representative in Italy of the Sudan Liberation Movement, explained in Senate that the mercenaries hired by Gaddafi ''are the same people who have bombed our villages and killed our families in Darfur. Now they are doing the same things in Libya, helping Gaddafi with his massacres''.

To confirm the fact that the ''war dogs'' - as the Serbian tabloid Alo called them - move anywhere they are needed to spread terror and shed blood, the first to arrive in Libya for tens of thousands of dollars were - according to the tabloid - Serbian mercenaries who were working in African countries to train local armed forces or bodyguards of dictators-presidents, like Mobutu in Zaire. They are former troops, former policemen, former members of the 'Red Berets', the special unit created by Slobodan Milosevic. (ANSAmed)