HRW says Iran recruiting Afghans for Syria fight
KABUL: Fleeing grinding poverty and unemployment, thousands of Afghan Shiites have been recruited by Iran to defend Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, former fighters and rights activists say.
Afghan men and boys as young as 14 are signing up to fight on the promise of money and legal residency in Shiite-dominated Iran, Assad’s regional ally, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Since 2013 the Afghans, including undocumented migrants living in Iran, have joined the Tehran-backed Fatemiyoun division fighters in Syria, said HRW and ex-members who spoke to AFP on condition their real names were not used.
“For me, it was just about money,” said Shams, a former fighter.
The 25-year-old, a member of the Hazara ethnic group, went to Syria twice in 2016 to fight in a conflict that has now been raging for more than six years.
“Whoever I saw was going for money and to have free entry to Iran. I never saw anyone fighting for religious reasons,” said Shams, who now lives in the Afghan capital Kabul.
The withdrawal of US-led NATO combat troops at the end of 2014 drained the Afghan economy and left many people out of work, fueling the flow of migrants into Iran in search of a better life.
HRW estimated last year that Iran hosts around 3 million Afghans.
In this desperate pool, Iranian recruiters targeted Shiites to swell the ranks of Fatemiyoun soldiers, who HRW says fight alongside Syrian regime forces.
“I went there (Iran) because I was jobless and it was a way to get money for my family,” said Shams.
“My idea was to find a job in Iran. I had no plan to go to fight in Syria but after a month of being jobless, I decided to go.
“They were encouraging us saying ‘you will be a freedom fighter and if you return to Iran alive you can stay with a 10-year residence permit.’ But my main goal was to earn money.”
Afghan Shiites are given 1.5 million rials ($450) to register at a recruitment center for the Fatemiyoun, Shams said. Once they have signed up they receive 3 million rials a month, a fortune for many poor Afghans.
Shams’ first mission was in June 2016 in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he was assigned to protect a barracks for two months. He went back to the country in September and was deployed to Aleppo, where he was given his first AK-47 rifle after receiving rudimentary weapons training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
On the front line of the battle between Daesh and the Al-Nusra Front, Shams said he found himself caught up in an intense and deadly battle.
“In Aleppo, we faced an ambush — out of 100 fighters we lost almost all of them. There were 15 BEIRUT: Lebanese politicians accused the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of arrogance on Tuesday after he claimed dominance over the region.
“No decisive actions can be taken in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Africa and the Gulf region without Iran’s consent,” Rouhani said in a speech in Tehran on Monday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri described Rouhani’s speech as unacceptable. “Lebanon is an independent Arab state that accepts no guardianship and refuses whatever undermines its dignity,” he said
The Future Movement Bloc, which has 33 members of Parliament, said Rouhani’s statement was describing it as “arrogant” and “vaunting.”
“It is now obvious that Iran aspires to take control of Lebanon and the region. Several Iranian officials have expressed this wish over the past few years, and we were misled into thinking that they were moderate and open-minded.” the MPs said.
Former Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb said: “Let everyone keep their hands off Lebanon. Leave the country to its government and institutions; they alone can determine its fate.”
The former Justice Minister, Ashraf Rifi, criticized the failure of us left alive,” Shams said.
“The bodies were sent back to Iran and the families in Afghanistan held funeral ceremonies in mosques without a coffin or grave.”
Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, estimates more than 760 Afghans have been killed in Syria since September 2013.
Another man who fought in Syria in 2014 when he was 17, said it was not just Afghans in Fatemiyoun. “There were also Pakistanis, Iraqis — all the Shiites,” he told AFP. of President Michel Aoun to respond. His “silence in the face of Rouhani’s insult is unacceptable and humiliating,” Rifi said.
Hikmat Dib, an MP from the Change and Reform bloc, said Rouhani’s statement was a response to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “Iran’s influence in the Middle East has become a reality and it is exerted in Lebanon through Hezbollah; however, this does not mean that all decisions taken in Lebanon should pass by Iran first. We are a sovereign country and refuse this logic.”
Dib said that, despite its affiliation to Iran, Hezbollah had always stressed that the Iranian leadership did not intervene in internal Lebanese affairs. “We must appreciate Hezbollah’s role in defeating occupation and fighting terrorism,” he said. “We must also protect internal stability and spare Lebanon regional tensions that result from the intensification of regional conflicts.”
Nadim Gemayel, a member of the Kataeb bloc, said: “Rouhani’s speech proves that everything we said about the new guardianship over Lebanon and the scope of Iran’s influence is true. Al-Hariri’s response to Rouhani was good but it was not enough; the president, who is entrusted with Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence, must take a clear and open stance toward this matter.”
“We were mixed up with the Arabs, we did not understand their language.”
HRW says the Iranians refuse to provide accurate figures, but estimates there are nearly 15,000 Afghans fighting for Fatemiyoun.
“They are used by the Iranian government, which treats them like slaves,” said Ramazan Bashardost, a Hazara member of Parliament in Kabul.
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry called on Iran in October to stop sending young Afghans to Syria after the HRW report condemning the recruitment of minors.