Pro-Iran fighters threaten Pakistan’s security
Pakistan’s colossal human and financial sacrifices to uproot terrorism are undoubtedly appreciated globally. Its security forces have carried out intensive counterterrorism campaigns across the country, including at least 12 operations to clear the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The law and order situation has subsequently improved, although some militant outfits still operate across the Kurram and Waziristan agencies. Troublingly, this Ashura brought to the fore religion-based fanaticism and sectarianism in Pakistan. A TV channel had its license suspended after it aired a hyper-sectarian speaker using abusive and insulting language against the companions of Prophet Muhammad. The elements of religious fanaticism and sectarianism remaining in Pakistan have a direct link to Iran’s revolution. Arif Al-Hussaini, a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini, spearheaded the effort to import Iranian expansionist ideology into Pakistan. He traveled to Pakistan to organize pro-Iranian elements, remove their internal differences and create networks.
Al-Hussaini’s networks laid the foundations to quickly mobilize and create the Zeinabiyoun Brigade in Pakistan and the Fatemiyoun Brigade in Afghanistan. In 2012, both were sent to Syria to fight against rebelling Syrians alongside Hezbollah and other similar mercenaries. Now that Bashar Assad has regained control over much of Syria after using chemical weapons, barrel bombs and other deadly weaponry, pro-Iranian fighters belonging to the Zeinabiyoun Brigade have been returning to Pakistan.
Some of the returning fighters have been arrested by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, but a large number seem to have sneaked back into the country. These seasoned fighters have returned to their native cities to act as influencers and recruiters of other impressionable young Pakistanis.
Islamabad neither banned the organizations involved in recruiting young Pakistanis to the Zeinabiyoun Brigade nor developed a clear-cut policy about the Syrian uprising. Even when the Iranian military displayed the Zeinabiyoun flag alongside its other militias after Qassem Soleimani’s killing in Iraq early this year, Pakistan did not lodge its protest through official diplomatic channels.
The Zeinabiyoun Brigade has rarely been criticized or discussed in the Pakistani media. Though it often chooses to criticize Pakistan’s vital national institutions and regional allies, the media rarely highlights or exposes the nefarious activities of non-state actors aligned with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. As robust, deep-rooted sectarian networks continue to exist in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a dark cloud hangs over the future of both countries. Pakistan rightfully deserves foreign investment worth billions of dollars to revitalize its ailing economy, while Afghanistan requires much-needed foreign assistance to rehabilitate refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as to reconstruct its war-ravaged economy and society. By both countries overlooking, if not allowing, the existence of non-state militant actors, international support and finance will diminish over time.
The fanaticism and sectarianism expressed during Ashura can serve as a wake-up call for Pakistan before the hard-earned peace and harmony across the country comes to an abrupt end. If this is the reality on the ground now, what will happen when all the Zeinabiyoun fighters come back to Pakistan?