By Anas al-Bar | 2024-05-22

Militias in eastern Syria controlled by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are busing in additional foreign fighters to reduce their dependence on Syrian recruits, local sources said.

After a series of air strikes accurately targeted their arms depots and headquarters, these militias regard the Syrian fighters in their ranks with suspicion, accusing them of sharing information with Iran's adversaries.

On May 6, 260 foreign fighters -- Afghans, Pakistanis and others who had received training in Iran -- arrived in Syria from Iraq via the al-Qaim/Albu Kamal crossing, sources told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This brings the estimated number of foreign fighters brought into Syria this year to about 900, the Observatory said.

The new arrivals were brought in by bus as ostensible pilgrims intending to visit the holy sites in Syria, it said. The militias distributed them among their headquarters in Deir Ezzor city, Albu Kamal and al-Mayadeen.

IRGC-controlled militias in Syria include the Fatemiyoun Division, comprised of Afghan fighters, and the Zainabiyoun Brigade, comprised of Pakistani fighters.

'Lack of trust' in local recruits

Iranian militias have grown to distrust their Syrian elements, accusing them of collaborating with external parties and providing them with information and coordinates related to the militias' headquarters and movements, observers said.

Meanwhile, local recruits are displeased by the militias' disregard for their lives, complaining that they have been assigned to protect sites under threat from air strikes.

IRGC-linked militias previously recruited Syrian villagers to help them control these areas, said Al-Masdar Media Group director Nawras al-Arfi.

"They took advantage of their poverty and need for wages to encourage them to join their ranks," he told Al-Fassel.

But as the air strikes on militia strongholds in eastern Syria intensified, many local fighters "opted to abandon their groups and lay down their arms," he said, melting away into towns where they have relatives.

This disloyalty to the militias is at least in part due to a refusal to embrace Iranian ideology.

Iran has been working to promote in Syria the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), which calls for allegiance to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.

It has done this through "the so-called cultural centers and clubs that it opened in large numbers in the towns of eastern Syria," al-Arfi said, which expose the local population "to the risk of erasure of their cultural identities."