Associated Press: The Return of 'Ten Thousand' Trained IRGC Members to Afghanistan

A senior official in the Afghan Ministry of Interior told the Associated Press that around ten thousand Afghan citizens, who were trained by the IRGC and fought in Syria, have now returned to Afghanistan. The report, published on Monday, April 1, states that this official is familiar with Afghan government intelligence details and wished to remain anonymous. According to the news agency, the Afghan government and 'many experts' believe that with the U.S. efforts to end its presence in Afghanistan, Iran is mobilizing these Shia forces again to advance its agenda in Afghanistan. The senior Afghan official stated that the Islamic Republic is currently assisting former fighters of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, who reside in Kabul and the Shia-majority Bamiyan region. The Fatemiyoun Brigade consists of Afghan 'volunteers' who were mobilized by the IRGC to be sent to Syria to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad's forces against his opponents. The Afghan official mentioned that 'the Afghan government's intelligence agency has identified some senior Iranian officials managing the activities of the fighters returning from Syria.' He added that these Iranian officials are providing weapons and money to the returning Fatemiyoun members and are creating a structure to quickly mobilize them again if needed. The Afghan official also stated that Abdul Ghani Alipour, an Afghan warlord of Hazara descent, is accused of assisting the Islamic Republic. Alipour was arrested last year on charges of forming an illegal militia group but was released following a protest by thousands of his supporters in Kabul. The Associated Press also reports that thousands of Afghans returning from the Syrian war face insecurity and life-threatening dangers. The news agency quotes some members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade who have now returned to Afghanistan, stating that many people in Afghanistan label them as 'traitors and terrorists,' and these individuals face extrajudicial detentions. Interviews conducted by the news agency suggest that returnees from the Syrian war are facing mistreatment in Afghanistan and are trying to hide their identities for fear of being killed by ISIS forces present in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch has accused the IRGC of sending Afghan migrant children as soldiers to the Syrian war. The organization reported that Afghan children, sometimes as young as 14, are being utilized in the Fatemiyoun Brigade to fight alongside Iranian forces in Syria. International law considers sending individuals under 15 to the front lines a war crime. According to Agence France-Presse, Peter Bouckaert, director of emergency affairs at Human Rights Watch, also stated: 'The Iranian government, in addition to providing incentives for Afghan migrants to go to the Syrian war, forcibly sends some of them. Several of these individuals have reported that the Iranian government threatened them with expulsion from Iran if they did not go to Syria.' The Associated Press also interviewed a member of the Fatemiyoun who returned to Afghanistan, who had gone to Iran at the age of seventeen to migrate to Europe but joined the Fatemiyoun due to financial pressure after the European route was closed. This individual, using the pseudonym 'Mahdi,' stated that he earned $150 as a simple worker in Iran but was paid $900 monthly as part of the Fatemiyoun Brigade. He explained that after registering for deployment to Syria, he was taken for military training to an IRGC base in Yazd and, after some training, flew to Damascus with 1,600 other militia members. According to 'Mahdi,' the Afghan recruits sent to Syria were directly sent to the front lines against the al-Nusra Front, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda, in Khan Touman in the outskirts of Aleppo. The battles in the Aleppo countryside are among the bloodiest in Syria, and 'Mahdi' stated that in one of these battles, '800 Afghans were sent to the front lines, and only 200 of them returned alive or injured.' Khan Touman remains under the control of the al-Nusra Front. In the battles of the Aleppo countryside, Syrian opposition forces, along with Iraqis, Chechens, Turkmen, Uzbeks, and other foreign jihadists, are engaged on one side, while Syrian army soldiers, Iranian military personnel, Hezbollah from Lebanon, Iraqi and Afghan Shia, supported by Russian military aircraft, are on the opposing side.