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Sectarian affiliation in this case does not supersede a social hierarchy based on national identity. Indeed, the body count of Afghan soldiers in Syria suggests a less glorious reality of the united Shiite struggle. According to a Spiegel report, some 700 Afghans have lost their lives in Daraa and Aleppo alone while fighting for Assad. Recently, senior fellow Ali Alfoneh from the Washington Institute attempted to decipher the number of Afghan and Iranian casualties in Syria using data from funeral services in Iran. He found that at least 255 Afghans and 342 Iranian nationals were killed in combat in Syria between 2012 and March 2016, with a considerable spike this year. Even as recent death tolls indicate that Iranian nationals are increasingly involved in combat too, Afghans still made up half of Iran’s official losses in recent months. As Alfoneh argues, “the Islamic Republic will limit its own exposure and losses by fighting to its last non-Iranian proxy, even when its own personnel would be more effective”.
The notion that the young Afghan recruits represent expendable “bare” life, placed at the front line of the battle, is present throughout personal accounts. An Afghan teenage recruit who had fled his military troops in Syria and arrived to Lesbos, Greece, told a BBC reporter that Afghan fighters in Syria were used as “first-wave shock troops” and were “effectively disposable”. A Syrian officer in charge of an Afghan brigade was quoted in Spiegel as saying: “Do what you want with them. You can kill them, they’re just mercenaries. We can send you thousands of them.” According to the same report, the Syrian regime often engages in prisoner exchanges over Iranian and Hizbollah soldiers, but Afghans and other mercenaries of the Fatemiyoun Brigade are never part of the deal.
full: http://ajammc.com/2016/06/14/afghan-soldiers-in-syria/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
