The Fatemiyoun militia, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and composed mainly of Afghan fighters, has expanded its deployment in recent weeks across parts of Sistan and Baluchestan province in south-eastern Iran, near the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Footage showed its members conducting military training exercises and armed patrols in the province.
Reports of hundreds of members stationed in the province
Local reports said hundreds of members had been stationed at bases and in residential areas across Sistan and Baluchestan. The Iranian rights network Haalvsh published footage that it said documented the militia’s movements. In its latest video, armed men wearing military uniforms were seen moving through the Rodmahi highlands, near the city of Zahedan, before taking up positions there.
Another video showed Fatemiyoun members training in the use of weapons inside a girls’ school in the Ghasht area of Saravan. The network also published footage showing dozens of motorbikes being transported on vehicles to the Rodmahi base, where militia members are stationed.
On 11 September, four Fatemiyoun members were killed while conducting a patrol in the Rodmahi area after coming under fire from gunmen who later burned their vehicle, according to the account of the Haalvsh rights network. The incident came amid the expansion of movements attributed to the militia in several border areas of the province. The network said hundreds of Fatemiyoun members had deployed in Zahedan, Saravan, Zabol and Chabahar, cities and areas within Sistan and Baluchestan province.
Local criticism of the presence of Afghan fighters
It added that, in some areas, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had handed the members bases belonging to the Basij that had been used by local forces. The presence of Afghan members affiliated with the militia drew criticism from Molavi Abdolhamid, the Friday prayer leader of Zahedan’s Sunni community.
During Friday prayers on 18 September, Abdolhamid spoke of bringing “foreign and proxy forces” into Sistan and Baluchestan. He called on the authorities to rely on the province’s residents and local forces, saying he believed reliance on those forces would not achieve much success. The deployment coincided with preparations by provincial officials to organise a large parade under the name “Iran’s Fadaiyan Battalions”.
Gholamreza Kanjari, the director-general of political affairs in Sistan and Baluchestan, said about 100,000 people would take part in the programme. He provided no details about the units scheduled to participate or their deployment locations, and did not say whether Fatemiyoun would be among those taking part in the parade. Fatemiyoun is one of the most prominent militias linked to the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Recruitment of refugees and estimates of Fatemiyoun’s size
The militia is composed primarily of Afghans, most of whom were recruited from Afghan refugees and migrants living in Iran. When imposing sanctions on the militia in 2019, the US Treasury Department said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij had relied mainly on Afghan refugees and migrants in Iran to recruit Fatemiyoun fighters.
It added that some recruits faced pressure linked to their residency status or the possibility of deportation in order to push them to take part in fighting in Syria. No precise official figures are available on the militia’s size. Human Rights Watch cited an estimate from an interview published by Iran’s Tasnim news agency indicating that it had around 14,000 fighters, while other estimates put the number at about 20,000 fighters at the height of the Syrian war.
The organisation also documented the participation of Afghan children in its ranks, some of them no older than 14. Fatemiyoun traces its roots to groups of Afghan fighters who had previously taken part in the Iran-Iraq war. The formation in its modern form emerged during the Syrian war under the leadership of Alireza Tavasoli, who was killed in Daraa in 2015.
Reports describe Seyed Hassan Mortazavi, Iran’s deputy ambassador to Kabul, as one of the militia’s founders and as one of the figures involved in recruiting Afghan fighters and organising Fatemiyoun’s activities. They also describe him as one of the senior Quds Force commanders responsible for the Afghan file. Since 2013, Fatemiyoun has taken part in several major fronts of the Syrian war alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah and forces loyal to the Assad regime.
Afghan objections to recruitment and fighting in Syria?
Its deployment included fronts in Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Hama and Deir ez-Zor. The recruitment of Afghans prompted official objections in Kabul. In 2017, the former Afghan government called on Iran to stop recruiting Afghan refugees and sending them to fight in Syria, particularly after reports emerged of children being brought into the militia’s ranks.
That same year, Mohammad Mohaqiq, then deputy chief executive of the Afghan government, faced criticism after praising Afghan fighters taking part in the Syrian war and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani during a visit to Tehran. The Afghan presidency responded that his remarks did not represent the government’s position and contradicted Afghanistan’s foreign policy, national interests and laws.
Mohaqiq’s remarks faced objections in parliament, while members of the Senate called for him to be prosecuted. He was also later accused of supporting the recruitment of Afghans for Fatemiyoun, but he was not referred for trial or investigation over allegations that he had taken part in those operations.
The militia entered a new phase after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, when its members withdrew from their positions as the lines of forces loyal to the regime collapsed. European reports indicated that most Fatemiyoun fighters had left their positions, with some transferred to Iran alongside members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, while others crossed into Iraq or headed to Lebanon with Hezbollah members.
News reports cited former fighters as saying that groups from the militia reached Russian bases before being evacuated to Iran. At the same time, families lost contact with a number of fighters during the rapid collapse of the fronts, while hundreds of Fatemiyoun members moved to Iraq after the fall of Assad.
According to the Washington Institute, fighters who had been in Deir ez-Zor crossed into the Iraqi area of Al-Qaim and were then transferred to positions belonging to the Popular Mobilisation Forces, including Jurf al-Sakhar and Ashraf Camp in Diyala province. The institute later tracked militia members at a camp in Salah al-Din province, a base in Tuz Khurmatu and a training centre in the district of Balad.
The locations identified by the institute also included two camps in southern Baghdad and Rusafa. It said Iraqi armed factions aligned with Iran had helped facilitate the movements of Fatemiyoun members after they moved from Syria into Iraqi territory. In Afghanistan, the militia’s presence has remained a sensitive issue since the Taliban returned to power.
In August, the movement’s authorities asked residents of Malistan district in Ghazni province to report Fatemiyoun members, as a number of fighters who joined the militia came from the area. This coincided with reports that Iran had asked Taliban opponents living on its territory to halt their operations against the movement, as well as Iranian assurances that it would not allow any party to attack the Taliban government.
Later, the Iranian authorities formally invited armed opponents of the Taliban to take part in the funeral ceremony for former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, alongside an invitation to senior Taliban officials. The invitation to the opponents and the holding of an official reception for them angered the Taliban.
After widespread criticism from media outlets affiliated with the movement, Iran’s deputy ambassador to Kabul, Seyed Hassan Mortazavi, said Tehran did not support any political or military faction opposed to the Taliban and did not classify armed fighting against it as “resistance”. The Taliban’s official spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, welcomed Mortazavi’s remarks, stressing the importance and depth of relations between the movement and Iran.
Observers believed that the Iranian deputy ambassador’s position was intended to reassure the Taliban and contain its anger after its opponents were invited and received in Iran as an official delegation. The deployment in Sistan and Baluchestan has brought Fatemiyoun back to the forefront of military activity inside Iran, after years in which most of its operations were concentrated outside Iranian territory, particularly in Syria.
The nature of the missions assigned to its members in the province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan remains undisclosed.
