Baladi News – (Musab Omar)
Iranian websites published photos of a graveyard of Afghani mercenaries killed in Syria. The majority of these victims were fighters for "Liwa Fatemiyoun" supervised by Quds Force commanded by Qasem Soleimani.
Since early 2014, Iran has been sending Afghani refugees to fight in Syria either through promising them to be granted financial incentives as well as a legal residence or through threatening them to be deported back to Afghanistan.
The Revolutionary Guard considers that these Afghans living in the Iranian territories must be used as soldiers for salaries ranging between $350 and $500 a month as well as several privileges including permanent residence.
The recruitment of Afghans is not limited to refugees inside Iran. Rather, Iran prompts Afghans inside Afghanistan to accept recruitment in the ranks of its forces fighting in Syria. In August 2016, the Afghani intelligence arrested Qurban Ghulam Bor, an Iranian official, outside his house on charges of recruiting Afghans inside their country to fight in Syria.
Iran has recruited Afghans under religious and sectarian banners. Liwa Fatemiyoun, literally "Fatimid Banner," is one of the most prominent Iranian groups with a majority of Afghani fighters. Including nearly 20,000 soldiers and trained by the Revolutionary Guard, the militia is divided into three brigades in Damascus, Hama, and Aleppo and the Syrian Desert.
It is noteworthy that Human Rights Watch collected late in 2015 the testimonies of 20 Afghanis who used to live in Iran. They said that they were forced to fight in Syria, from which they escaped to Greece or were deported to Afghanistan because they refused to fight, whereas others volunteered to fight in Syria for religious reasons or in order to be granted a legal residence in Iran.