Iran recruits Pakistani Shiites for Syria fight

Pakistanis are only the latest Shiites recruited to fight in Syria after Lebanese, Iraqi and even Afghan militias The Zeinabiyoun logo, a fist holding a machine gun set in green and yellow, is almost an identical copy of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group

For years, websites linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have posted articles eulogising Shiite fighters who die in Syria. But two men heralded last month for dying to defend a shrine near Damascus were different from most martyrs given such treatment in the past: they were Pakistanis.

The men were part of the Zeinabiyoun, a unit of Pakistani fighters, the latest contingent in an Iranian drive to recruit Shiites from the region to fight in Syria.

While there has been no official announcement of their total numbers, a regional source familiar with the issue said there were hundreds.

“The Zeinabiyoun are a Pakistani Shiite outfit that’s run by the IRGC,” said Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland.“They’ve put together their own imagery, their own recruitment type material. They really became more of a marketable element toward the end of the summer of 2015.”

Although the vast majority of Pakistanis are Sunnis, the country is home to millions of Shiites, making it among the biggest Shiite communities.

“There is a large pool to draw from,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington and author of a book on relations between Pakistan and Iran.

“There are pockets within that Shiite community that have been willing to pick up arms to fight for their Shiite identity, their sectarian identity. And that’s what the IRGC is tapping into.”

They are only the latest Shiites recruited by Iran to fight in Syria, after Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, members of Iraq’s Shiite majority and members of Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazara Shiite minority. All have been deployed to support Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, whose own Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiism.

The Zeinabiyoun have drawn on the symbols of their fellow Shiite fighters to brand themselves: their logo, a fist holding a machine gun set in green and yellow, is an almost identical copy of that of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. They are occasionally referred to as Hezbollah Pakistan online.