For the first time, the fate of the Afghan Fatemiyoun Brigade, which took part in defending the totalitarian Assad regime in Syria , is much clearer. The New Arab spoke with members of this militia to find out what happened during the final days of the Assad regime in Syria, what happened to the Afghan Fatemiyoun fighters who fled to Iran, and why they later returned to Afghanistan, where they are now under immense scrutiny.
The names of the fighters who spoke with TNA have been changed due to security concerns in Afghanistan.
Following the rapid collapse of positions held by the army of the fallen Syrian regime in December 2024, the Afghan fighter Sheikh Ali Hussein threw down his rifle and fled in panic, searching for a way to escape the death closing in on him. The same happened to others from his country who fought alongside the Bashar al-Assad's regime under the banner of the so-called "Fatemiyoun Brigade", which joined the war in Syria alongside Hezbollah and Iranian forces.
Recalling those days, Hussain describes it as a difficult time. He said that he and his comrades abandoned their military position in the Khan Tuman area of rural Aleppo and headed towards Damascus under instructions from their commanders to arrange their escape to Iran. The road, however, was not safe, according to his account of the final days of the Afghan militia in Syria. Despite this, "we miraculously survived multiple ambushes along the way", the man in his thirties added, noting that they were transferred from there to a Russian military base one day before the regime fell.
"From there we left the country by plane," he said.
While some fighters were allowed to leave directly by air alongside members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, others were forced to undertake an overland escape to neighbouring Iraq or joined Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, according to the report "What Happened to Iran's Proxies in Syria?", published on 14 December 2024 by the European Centre for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies (ECTC), an independent research institution in Germany. The final day As the battlefield deteriorated, orders were issued for forces allied with Assad's army to withdraw gradually towards Damascus in small groups of 12 fighters each.
The route to the capital was not secure, forcing some fighters to avoid main roads and rely on contacts among Syrians. They eventually reached military and logistical sites in and around Damascus that were operated and used by the Russian army.
Among them were 150 Afghans travelling with Hussein, who were evacuated to Iran in an operation overseen by a Quds Force officer, he told TNA .
"Anyone who failed to reach Damascus was either killed or disappeared, and we know nothing about them," he added.
Hussein's account aligns with that of Ali Rahimi Sigani, one of the coordinators between Afghan fighters and the Quds Force.
He was evacuated by Russian aircraft alongside 80 Afghan fighters, Quds Force officers and wounded Iranians.
Speaking to TNA, he said the number of Afghan fighters in Syria peaked at 20,000 in 2023.
Many were killed because they were deployed on the front lines, with Quds Force members, Hezbollah fighters and Assad's army positioned behind them.
More tragically, Sigani said, Afghan fighters were killed by their Iranian allies, Hezbollah members and regime forces while attempting to flee as the battles intensified.
Many others disappeared, including the young fighter Mortaza Hassan, according to his uncle.
The uncle travelled to Iran to learn the fate of both his nephew and his son-in-law.
He told TNA, "I tried contacting Quds Force officers and Afghan officers and fighters to ask about my nephew. They told me he was not among those who left Aleppo after the Assad regime lost the city and that the number of missing people there runs into the thousands."
Hassan last contacted his wife on 28 November 2024, one day after the fighting began.
The uncle later left Iran and returned home with his daughter and grandchildren after losing hope of finding any information about his nephew, who had served as an officer in the Fatemiyoun Brigade since 2017. Arriving in Iran Upon arriving in Iran, Sheikh Ali Hussein said he was deeply disappointed.
Authorities refused to grant him a temporary residence permit valid for one year and renewable, claiming he lacked a recommendation from his field commander during the fighting in Syria .
The Afghan fighters were also subjected to extensive security screening that, according to Hussein, did not reflect the sacrifices they had made for Tehran.
Testimonies from commanders of the military units in which the fighters had served were used to determine whether they deserved adjustments to their residency status.
The applications of the fortunate few were later submitted to official authorities.
"Despite promises of obtaining long-term residency later, most fighters were ignored by the authorities, and no explanations were given as to why," Hussein said.
Failure to obtain residency means losing access to financial compensation, facing legal insecurity, and risking deportation.
It also means returning to the economic hardship that drove many Afghans to leave their country and fight in Syria .
This was confirmed by both Sigani and fighter Farhad Hosseini, who spent one year in Syria.
"I was among those who left Damascus three days before the regime fell. When we arrived in Tehran, we hoped for financial compensation and administrative facilitation because we had served the Islamic Republic, but all of that proved to be a mirage," Hussein described.
"As soon as we got off the plane and left the airport, we found ourselves strangers in Tehran," he continued. "One week after arriving, I received a call from a Quds Force officer instructing me not to speak about anything related to their work or the fighting in Syria, such as training locations, the names of Iranian figures I worked with in Syria, or anything we endured during the final days."
Even so, according to sources interviewed for this investigation, the situation of those returning from fighting in Syria remains better than that of Afghan refugees.
Hosseini said he still does not know the future plans for the Fatemiyoun Brigade, whose ranks have expanded to the point that it has become a division.
He noted that fighters remain in Iran and do not know whether they will be deployed in future conflicts. "We do not have a clear picture of Iran's intentions towards us, or whether Afghan fighters will be transferred to other battlefields," Sigani added.
Their expectations are supported by the report "Counterterrorism, The Reality of Iran-Backed Armed Groups in Iraq and Syria After the Fall of the Bashar al-Assad Regime", published by the European Centre for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies on 18 February 2025.
According to the report, "After the Fatemiyoun Brigade left Syria, Tehran may seek to redeploy them in other regional conflicts to support its proxies. Therefore, it is interested in keeping those who remain prepared to restore its influence and activities gradually."
"In any case, the fighters still in Iran indeed maintain close ties with commanders in the Fatemiyoun Brigade, but I do not know whether some of them have received new military orders. What I do know is that they have not received the salaries they were promised and are living in severe hardship. Those who returned to Afghanistan are suffering even more and are looking for any available work to save their children from hunger," Sigani said. An unexpected end Most fighters did not expect that they were fighting their final battle alongside Assad's army, according to Hussein, who received a monthly salary of $550 in Syria after leaving Afghanistan to fight at the end of 2019.
"Things were certainly more difficult than before, but the speed of the regime's collapse after successive military defeats was surprising," he said.
To recruit fighters in Syria, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard used a combination of incentives and coercion to recruit Afghan refugees and migrants. Money was offered to undocumented individuals, who were promised legal status. Some recruits were also released from prison and promised their criminal records would be erased if they joined the Fatemiyoun Brigade", according to the ECTC report. "Those were rare cases, perhaps two or three," said Afghan cleric Mohammad Hosseini Bamiyani.
Speaking to TNA about the motivations behind most recruitment, he said, "The majority went in search of work, a salary and permanent residency for their families. Others came from religious schools in Iran and went to defend holy sites. Religious scholars recruited them and were usually appointed to leadership positions within the Fatemiyoun." Building a new life in Afghanistan Afghan woman Zainab Mortazawi said that "the Quds Force destroyed the lives of thousands of Afghans, including my husband".
"In the end, those who were killed were killed, and those who returned are living miserable lives in their homeland," she added.
During 2014, 2015 and 2016, 15,000 Afghans, all from the Hazara ethnic group, Afghanistan's third-largest ethnic community, were killed, according to Sigani.
"Qassem Soleimani personally supervised the recruitment of Afghans and their transfer to Syria. They fought in Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, Homs, Daraa, Latakia, Hama and Al-Bukamal. But in the months before the regime fell, most of them were concentrated in Aleppo, Hama and Damascus," he said.
Because of deteriorating conditions and mounting hardship, some Afghan fighters returned to Afghanistan after only a few months in Iran, according to Hassan, Sigani and Hussein.
Hussein said he now works in a timber shop but cannot perform all his daily duties normally because of back pain resulting from an injury sustained during the fighting, limiting his ability to work and adequately support his family.
He added that he lost contact with most of his former comrades after leaving Syria.
Little has changed in his life apart from reuniting with his family, while the physical, psychological and economic effects of war continue to follow him.
His future, like that of many who fought abroad, remains uncertain.
Farhad Hosseini returned to Afghanistan after spending five months in Iran, crossing through the Islam Qala border point in Herat province, western Afghanistan, which borders Iran.
He said he has not encountered any problems so far. He now sells fruit and vegetables at Mandawi market in Kabul to support his family of five.
However, he has psychological disorders because of what he experienced during the war in Syria.
"During the final battles with the Syrian revolutionary forces, we faced death more than once. Even during our escape, we nearly fell into ambushes. Despite all that, we were denied our rights in Iran, and our administrative status was not adjusted, because our identity documents had been lost and there was no proof of our status or participation in the fighting in Syria," Mandawi said.
Amid this suffering, Hosseini recalled the story of a colleague named Mohammad Mortazawi, 33, who spent two years and three months in Syria.
After struggling in Iran, he returned to Afghanistan but was also unable to find a way to earn a living.
He left Kabul for Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, where he worked in a gemstone and gold mine for a daily wage.
He died alongside others in a mine collapse during the first week of May 2025.
His widow, Zainab Mortazawi, recounted what happened.
"In February 2025, we returned home after the family endured great fear and anxiety in Iran because my husband did not receive his rights. We found the conditions extremely bad. He left to work in the mine, but he died there along with his cousin, who had also fought in Syria," Mortazawi said.
Explaining why they left Iran, she remarked, "Iranian security agents raided our home in January 2025 without us knowing why. They searched the house, confiscated my husband's personal weapon and detained him for 48 hours before releasing him. That was when we decided to return to our country."
These cases have been monitored by the Afghan government, according to a source in the Afghan intelligence service who requested anonymity.
"We have a dedicated department responsible for Afghan groups abroad, particularly those that may pose a security threat to the country, such as Fatemiyoun fighters," the source claimed.
"We have tracked the return of hundreds of them and established an active communication channel with Hazara religious leaders to monitor their situation. After verifying their intentions and plans, we granted them assurances of safety," the source added. Article translated from Arabic. To read the original, click here .