Iran sent them to Syria. Now Afghan fighters are a worry at home

Iran sent them to Syria. Now Afghan fighters are a worry at home
Iran has trained and deployed thousands of Shia Afghans as shock troops in Syria’s sectarian war. Members of the Afghan unit, the Fatemiyoun Division, wear a shoulder patch recounting words of praise from Iran’s supreme leader as a badge of honor.

What those fighters might do when they come home is now very much on the minds of officials who fear that Afghanistan may become the next great sectarian battleground between Iran, as the declared guardian of Shia, and Saudi Arabia, long the sponsor of conservative Sunni doctrine around the world.

“This is quite dangerous: What happens to this Fatemiyoun force when the war in Syria is over?” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former Afghan intelligence chief. “The fear is that rivalry in the region, between Iran and Saudi, will shift to Afghanistan. And I think that clash is already shifting here.”

There is reason for worry. First, there’s a history: The factional divisions that drove Afghanistan’s devastating civil war in the 1990s were seized on by foreign powers who were seeking proxies. And there’s a new concern: A stark increase in attacks against Afghanistan’s Shia minority, mostly by Sunni extremists loyal to the ISIS, is already providing Iran a pretext to increase its meddling in the country.

The attacks have received wide coverage in the Iranian news media. And one Fatemiyoun fighter who returned about three months ago from Syria said the violence against Afghan Shias was a frequent topic raised by their commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The Afghan fighter had returned to his home in Yakawlang, a village in Bamian Province where the Taliban massacred more than 300 Shias in 2001. Every year, hundreds of residents kneel on the dirt in a hilltop cemetery and beat their chests in mourning for their loved ones, their names listed on a metal sign worn out by time and covered in rust.

“The Guards commanders are saying that, if it comes to it, we will make Bamian into a base for you, a base for Fatemiyoun,” said the returning fighter, who like others interviewed for this New York Times article spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being singled out for attack.

Iran has long relied more on soft power than armed might in Afghanistan, playing up its cultural, religious and economic influence in western Afghan districts near the border. And though Iran resents the presence of the United States military on its border, it has mostly supported the American-backed administration in Kabul.

Afghan officials acknowledge that they have not yet seen evidence that Iran was actively rallying Fatemiyoun veterans. But the officials are deeply concerned that the groundwork is being laid. And statements by Iran’s military leaders, as well as their use of Afghan fighters in other conflicts, suggests that Iran sees the force as an asset in future engagements.

Brig. Gen. Ismail Qaani, the deputy commander of the Quds force within the Revolutionary Guards, recently told a memorial for Afghan fighters that Syria was just a temporary goal in a larger vision.

“Fatemiyoun is a new culture — a collection of Shia men who do not see boundaries and borders in defending Islamic (Shia) values, General Qaani said, as quoted in the local Iranian media.

The core of what is now the Fatemiyoun Division included fighters from Shia militias that had Iranian support during the Afghan civil war. Some even went to Iraq to fight on behalf of Iran against Saddam Hussein.

Many of the Afghan mercenaries, mostly recruited from among Afghan refugees or illegal laborers in Iran, join for the salary of about 0 a month, and for the promise of Iranian residency paperwork after a deployment to Syria, which usually lasts three months. But they soon realize that the benefits are designed as a hook: The paperwork needs to be validated every year, and that requires enlisting again.

“Here, I am scared — of the government, of ISIS,” said one former Fatemiyoun fighter who has returned to Kabul, using another name for the ISIS. “And if I don’t go back to Syria, my Iranian passport will lose validity.”

Afghan officials say the Iranian police have intensified a crackdown on illegal Afghan immigrants, arresting as many as 200 a day. When they arrive at deportation centers, Iranian military officers are there to offer another option.

“My intention was Syria, to defend the shrine,” said the Afghan fighter who returned to his home in Yakawlang, and who wanted to be identified only by the name Abas.

Abas described his fellow Afghan fighters being pitched into battles that resembled the brutality of the Afghan civil war.

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