I remember playing classic Syndicate on year it came out and it is always same: briefing does suggest clever tactics how to avoid enemy squads, yet in battlefield it is useless since enemy squads, as a rule, are rushing in waves towards you at very beginning. After you slaughter them with mini guns, or whatever mass destruction weapon, then mission is essentially over.

There is mission in Kazakhstan where briefing suggest patience: player should wait until gangs are fighting against each other and then deal with remnants. But, in fact, they are NOT fighting against each other! One gang rushes towards you, and other is just inactive until you reach then and slaughter them. This kind of behavior suggests that this is major glitch thru entire game.

Syndicate was originally designed as a multiplayer game. The AI was basically smoke and mirrors - they didn't know how to make good AI so they faked it. Syndicate Wars' AI (in particular the pathfinding and faction AI) was much enhanced though and works more or less as it was originally intended (e.g. the police in Syndicate would only respond to you carrying a weapon, whereas in SW they treat all hostiles equally).

There's actually four syndicates in Kazakhstan: the red and blue agents both chase you after awhile, but the yellow and peach agents should fight each other just north of the drop zone. Eventually they will end up grouped up in one spot and stop fighting each other, which might explain why you didn't notice them.