Iran recruits Afghans, Pakistanis for its rebel groups: US

KABUL (Pajhwok): The US State Department has said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) recruit foreign fighters for expanding influence in regional countries.

In its twitter account, US State Department said that IRGC recruited Afghan Shiite militias for Iran’s Fatimion Brigade and Pakistani Shiite militias for Zainabiyoun Brigade for fighting in the region, particularly in Syria. The tweets said that the US sanctioned both of the groups in 2019.

Based on the information of West Point, a center for fighting terrorism, the number of Fatimion militias reaches around 12,000 personnel.

“An official of Fatimion Brigade in Iran in January 2018 had said that more than 2,000 of the brigade’s fighters had been killed in Syria,” the US State Department added.

It said that the Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed and condemned children’s recruitment by the Fatimion group in 2018 and exposed documents about Afghan children of ages of 14 years old killed in Syria war.

The Afghan government has not yet commented on the issue so far. Iran also did not say anything on the regard.

Mds/ma