NEW YORK: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has recruited thousands of Afghans, some by coercion, to fight in Syria’s war alongside forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, Human Rights Watch said Friday.
“Iran has not just offered Afghan refugees and migrants incentives to fight in Syria, but several said they were threatened with deportation back to Afghanistan unless they did,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at the New York-based HRW.
“Faced with this bleak choice, some of these Afghan men and boys fled Iran for Europe.”
Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Assad and provides financial and military support to his regime.
Tehran says its Fatemiyoun Brigade, comprised of Afghan recruits, are volunteers to defend sacred Shiite sites in Syria and Iraq against extremists like those of Daesh.
The brigade is backed by the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
But some reports say the Afghans have been offered residency and a monthly salary to fight for Iran.
Tehran denies having any boots on the ground and insists its commanders and generals act as “military advisers” in Syria and Iraq.
However, funerals are regularly held across Iran for “volunteer” fighters from Iran, Afghanistan, and sometimes Pakistan.
Iran hosts an estimated three million Afghans, many of whom have fled persecution and repeated bouts of armed conflict in their homeland, said HRW.
Only 950,000 have refugee status in Iran and the rest have been deemed unqualified for asylum.
At least two dozen Afghans interviewed by the watchdog said they or their relatives had been recruited or coerced by the Iranian authorities to fight in Syria.
Six of them said Iranian forces had trained them or their relatives in military camps near Tehran and Shiraz in 2015.
Two of the six had joined voluntarily, while the other four said they or their relatives had been coerced or forced to fight.
Afghans were fighting in many areas of Syria, including Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Deir Ezzor, Hama, Latakia, and in areas near the Syrian border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, they said.
Iran coerces Afghans to fight alongside Assad forces: HRW
Iran coerces Afghans to fight alongside Assad forces: HRW
Syria army’s clashes with Kurds ‘setback’ to Turkiye peace process: PKK spokesman
- “The developments in Syria and the larger Middle East have a direct effect on the peace process in Turkiye,” said Hiwa
- The attacks “against the Kurds are a plot and conspiracy against the peace process”
BAGHDAD: Recent clashes between Syria’s military and Kurdish forces are a “setback” and a “plot” to derail the PKK peace process with Turkiye, a spokesman for the Kurdish militant group told AFP on Tuesday.
“The developments in Syria and the larger Middle East have a direct effect on the peace process in Turkiye,” said Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The attacks “against the Kurds are a plot and conspiracy against the peace process and they indicate a setback in the process,” he said.
Syria’s government and Kurdish forces on Saturday extended a truce by 15 days after the Kurds lost large areas to government forces during weeks of clashes.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) find themselves now restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the country’s north.
Turkiye is a close ally of Syria’s new leadership that overthrew Bashar Assad in December 2024, and which is now seeking to extend state control across Syria.
Ankara is simultaneously leading a drive to reach a settlement with the PKK — listed as a terror group by Turkiye and its Western allies.
Last year, the PKK said it was ending its four-decade insurgency in favor of democratic means but the process has largely stalled amid the stand-off in Syria.
Turkiye accuses the Syrian Kurdish forces of being an offshoot of the PKK.
Hiwa said the PKK’s “commitment to the peace process is a strategic issue.”
But he added that “the new strategy does not exclude the urgency of self-defense against genocidal attacks.”
