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Emran Feroz is an Afghan-Austrian journalist currently based in Stuttgart, Germany. He is regularly writing from Afghanistan, often focusing on the Middle East, Central Asia, drone warfare, refugee policies and human rights. Emran is writing in both German and English. His work has already appeared in international media outlets such as Al Jazeera, The Intercept, Alternet, The Atlantic or the New York Times and in various German and Austrian news papers and magazines.
Exceptionally, I want to hint at my latest work with The Intercept about Afghan teenagers who have been recruited by the Iranian government to fight in Syria’s civil war on the side of Bashar al Assad.
The protagonists of the piece are two young boys named Abu Fazel and Ali.
Both live in Leverkusen, Germany, at the moment. They did not flee to there from Afghanistan, their country of origin, but from Iran, where they grew up and used to live like millions of other Afghan refugees.
In Iran, Afghans face discrimination and racism on a daily basis. Most of them are not allowed to work or attend school and universities. Ali and Abu Fazel had similar experiences. Both are originally Hazara, a Shiite-Muslim minority in Afghanistan.
One day, Iranian state agents from the infamous Basij militia and the Revolutionary Guards appeared in the boys' neighborhood. In local mosques, mainly attended by Afghans, they started to talk about the war in Syria and how the "terrorists from ISIS and Al-Qaida" need to be killed.
They promised the Afghans a better life and documents if they decided to fight for Iran — which represents itself as the defender of all Shiites worldwide — in Syria.
At this time, both Ali and Abu Fazel were minors, like many other Afghans who went to Syria and died there.
“We are cheap cannon fodder for them,” said Ali after he fled to Europe from the recruitment.
According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, Iran is regularly recruiting Afghan teenagers to fight in Syria.
“Iran should immediately end the recruitment of child soldiers and bring back any Afghan children it has sent to fight in Syria", the report said.