The International Divisions of the sla
In several significant wars of the twentieth century, armies used foreign nationals to augment their ranks. Foreign nationals sometimes fought as independent but affiliated units. Sometimes they were inducted directly into the host armed forces. At other times, foreign nationals fought in international divisions. The subject of novels and folklore, the French Foreign Legion is the most famous and enduring model of this type. The Soviets and Nazis, too, used foreign nationals. The Soviets recruited and commanded foreign battalions and brigades to fight against fascists in Spain, while Germany built foreign divisions to fight its enemies during World War II.
More specifically, the Soviet NKVD recruited communists and antifascists to fight in Spain from 1936 to 1939. Each battalion’s commander was a Stalin loyalist and confirmed communist. Most of the thirty-five thousand volunteers in the Soviet International Brigades had left-leaning views, and many were dedicated communists. The defense of the Spanish Republic was romanticized by Western intellectuals, particularly the Bloomsbury Group in Britain and American celebrity journalists such as Hemingway. Progressive salons acclaimed the brigades in song, verse, and prose. But it was not only hard-left ideology that drew the volunteers; many young Western men had dismal employment prospects at home during the Depression.
Germans also created international units. During World War II, ss leader Himmler built international divisions to fight for the Reich, particularly after the defeat at Stalingrad, in early 1943. The Thirteenth Mountain Division of the Waffen-ss, the Handschar, recruited Balkan Muslims, and the Mufti of Jerusalem, then living in Berlin, called them to jihad. They fought for Hitler. Volunteers in the German SS, like those in the Spanish International Brigades, were often starry-eyed, unemployed men who hoped to craft a new world. They faced high unemployment in Europe and admired Germany’s financial recovery under National Socialism.
Like the Soviets and the Germans before them, Iranian leaders have built a legion of foreign volunteers to fight for a common cause. It comprises three divisions commanded by Iranians: the Afghan division, the Fatemiyoun; the Pakistani division, the Zaynabiyoun; and the Iraqi division, the Hayderiyoun. These divisions wear a standard uniform and carry a single banner. These were the primary ethnic cohorts of the SLA units.
There are three underlying reasons why Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis join the SLA. They are poverty, religion, and resentment. There is widespread poverty in the Middle East. Many Middle Eastern and South Asian Shia men are unemployed, depressed, and destitute. They need to provide for themselves and their families and see service in the SLA as a means to do so. At the same time, many recruits are religiously devout and find Khomeinism appealing. Just as some Westerners were drawn to the Soviet cause in the Spanish Civil War or the Nazi cause in World War II, many Shia see Iran as an advocate for their cause. In Iraq, they guard Najaf and Karbala, two cities particularly revered by Shia Muslims.
Another reason is resentment of the secondary social, religious, and economic status that the Shia hold in many Sunni-dominated countries. Historically, the Shia had to conceal their religious identity when living under the suzerainty of the Sunni. They continue to live at the sufferance of the Sunni in many countries.
The Afghan Division
In the 1980s, Iran shipped money, supplies, and arms to Afghan groups fighting the Soviets. Despite Iranian leaders' dislike of the Taliban, whom they saw as vulgar, they supported the Afghan group and its precursor organizations. Those Afghans who received Iranian aid were both Sunni and Shia. Today, there is a sizable Shia population in Afghanistan that serves as a pool of recruits for the Guards. The Guards developed the Fatemiyoun in 2002. Since then, more than two thousand Afghans have been killed fighting in Fatemiyoun uniforms. Fatemiyoun has several brigades and anywhere between twelve and fourteen thousand fighters, of whom three to four thousand are active in Syria. At the height of their involvement in the Syrian civil war, during the 2015–16 Battle of Aleppo, the Afghan division had nearly ten thousand Shia fighters deployed to Syria.
Recruits join for several reasons, but the dominant driver is economic. These Afghans are among the poorest of the world’s poor and turn to Iran for help. Unemployment in Afghanistan is about 27 percent. Some serving in the division will be able to obtain Iranian citizenship for themselves and their families. These Afghans are paid from $100 to $500 per month to fight. By regulation, recruits must be 18 or older, but many are younger, some as young as 14.
In 2015, the Iranian Interior Ministry estimated that 2.5 million Afghans were living in Iran, many without residency documents. Many of those holding refugee status today were born in Iran, yet they are not eligible for citizenship and are denied essential services. One Afghan recruit explained that the Guards’ recruiter promised, “We will send you to Syria. When you come back, we will give you an Iranian passport, a house, and money.” The recruiter added that he would be fighting a “religious war” in Syria.
Young Afghans fight for Shia Islam and for the praise they receive from revered leaders. They struggle to escape the Sunni-driven discrimination against Shia in Afghanistan. Many young, poor Shia revered Major General Soleimani as a father figure and now perceive him as a martyr. Ali Khamenei, too, praises the living Shia and salutes the Shia dead. If Hazara Afghans are disparaged by their Afghan Sunni countrymen, they are praised by Khamenei, who said, “I have personally seen that their seminary students felt an affinity with us. I have known them since old times.” Fatemiyoun are acclaimed in Guards-produced culture, such as in the documentary titled The Conquerors of Tomorrow. Tombstones at their graves throughout Iran describe fallen Afghan child volunteers as “defenders of the shrines.”
The Pakistani Division
The Zeinabiyoun Division is the Pakistani Shia unit of the SLA. Its recruits are drawn mainly from Pakistan's impoverished regions, particularly areas with a history of Sunni attacks on Shia. Many of those fighters come from Parachinar, the main town in the Kurram tribal region, which has a sizeable Shia population and where sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims is common. Suicide attacks and planted bombs have killed scores in the Kurram region.
In Pakistan, it is sometimes dangerous for the Shia to participate in Ashura processions, an essential Shia ritual, without fear of harassment or attack. Major General Jafari called for efforts to ensure the welfare of Pakistani pilgrims entering Iran en route to Iraq for pilgrimage. Like Afghans and Shia Arabs, Pakistani Shia rally to Iran’s causes based on religious conviction.
The Iraqi Division
The Iraqi Heydarioun Division was created in 2015 to supplement Iranian-commanded or Iranian-sponsored units in Syria. Its soldiers engage in combat, but the division’s central mission is logistical support. Inside Iran, it maintains logistics depots near major airports, moving personnel and cargo, including weapons and equipment, into Iraq and Syria via military and commercial aircraft. It also moves military cargo through border crossings along Iran’s western border into Iraq. The Heydarioun maintain the Guards’ land corridor between Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The Shia sect of Islam makes Iraq and Iran important neighbors. Millions of Iranian and Iraqi Shia cross each other’s national boundaries to visit the shrines of first-generation Muslim heroic figures. Crowds of Shia pilgrims converge on central Karbala each year to pray at the shrine of Mohammed’s grandson. The Heydarioun, unlike the Pakistani and Afghan recruits, fight mainly on their home terrain. For many Heydarioun legionnaires, the war is personal.
