Murad Ali Hamidi (left) and Said Ahmed Hussein were captured by rebel forces after storming a building in Aleppo, led by an Iranian officer. All of their comrades died when the rebels blew up the building. (Photo: Emin Ozmen/Lejournal/Der Spiegel)
Posted on 05/24/2015 7:16:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Many of his foreign fighters come from Afghanistan -- men like Murad, who is now being held in Aleppo as a prisoner-of-war... All he had wanted was an Iranian residence permit, he says... he found himself fighting as a mercenary in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Bashar Assad regime... When a violent explosion caused the house he was in to collapse, he found himself thinking about his daughters, he says. "I screamed and thought I was suffocating. And then, everything around me was quiet." Men arrived and pulled Murad, who was still screaming, out of the rubble. He was lucky, even if he didn't see it that way at first. "I thought they would kill me immediately. But they bandaged me up and took me to their quarters. There was someone there who spoke a bit of Persian and he told me I didn't need to be afraid."
That was seven months ago. Since then, Murad and another Afghan have been sitting in a makeshift prison belonging to the al-Shamiya Front, one of Aleppo's larger rebel formations. They are being held in a neon-lit basement, next to a roaring generator. The walls are crumbling, a product of the myriad explosions that have shaken the city. In addition to Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians have also been taken prisoner by other rebel groups, all of them fighting on the front lines. The war in the northern-Syrian city of Aleppo -- but also around both Hama and Damascus and down to Deraa in the south -- has taken on an Afghan face. Or, to be more precise, a face with distinctly Asian features. Many of those Afghans that have been sent into battle come from the Hazara, a Shiite minority that are the poorest of the poor in Afghanistan...
(Excerpt) Read more at rawa.org ...
Murad Ali Hamidi (left) and Said Ahmed Hussein were captured by rebel forces after storming a building in Aleppo, led by an Iranian officer. All of their comrades died when the rebels blew up the building. (Photo: Emin Ozmen/Lejournal/Der Spiegel)
Exclusive: Iranian embassy blown up in Damascus: Nusra Front suspected
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 21, 2015
http://www.debka.com/article/24613/Exclusive-Iranian-embassy-blown-up-in-Damascus-Nusra-Front-suspected
HUFFPO —
Washington Should Take War Off the Table Against Iran: Americans not Anointed to Kill at Will
Doug Bandow of CATO Institute (what’s his FR nick?)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/washington-should-take-wa_b_7290250.html
UN announces Yemen talks, Iran to allow ship inspection
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/un-announces-yemen-talks/1859358.html
Iran would appear to be a basket case militarily. It’s pretty amazing that they are sending the dregs to fight in Syria. Uncle Sam sent the Green Berets to train the ARVN, followed by the cream of the Army and the Marines to fight the Vietcong. Any career military man who wanted to fast-track his career needed a Vietnam ticket punch. Meanwhile, Iran is sending in people who aren’t even Iranians. You’d think they’d send their elite formations to get blooded, and to get the job done quickly. We are fortunate that the Iranian leadership are retards. Cyrus would be rolling over in his grave if he knew the depths to which his successors had sunk.
Interesting article, thank you.
Perhaps, but Iran’s main problem is public relations — there’s been a large opposition to Iran’s rather large involvement (19,000 troops / thugs were sent in sometime in the first year of the conflict) and the related body-bag syndrome. Iran’s proxy thugs in Lebanon were ordered into the fight, and it was in their best interests to comply, as the fall of Assad would damage their position. They’re being bled dry. Israel will clean out their missile bunkers with busters at the best possible time; Assad’s best routes of retreat (along with the remaining Alawite core of his armed forces) are to the Med, into Jordan, or to the Hizzie areas. I don’t think Israel would let them take either southern route.
The Iranian army is no joke, apart from their skeletal and ancient airforce. Motivating them to fight other than in defense of an attack on Iran is problematical. Also, if memory serves, the internal security thugs are all foreign-born, mostly “Palestinian” and other Arab detritus, and not all of them Shiite by any means. Using a foreign internal security force has big advantages — they don’t speak much of the local language(s), are seen as a threatening enemy which makes them cohesive, and are ruthless since they don’t have to answer for the ways they help keep on the lid.
Opinion: Morons and Traitors [Nasrallah of Hezbollah losing his grip]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3293180/posts
Syrian General Killed in Damascus Bomb Attack
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3293182/posts
Iran got its nose bloodied by Saddam’s military during the decade along Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
The greatest challenge of the Islamic regime is Kurdish uprisings in the northwest of the country.
Add to that the fact the dominant Persians are around half the population and you’re looking at an explosive cocktail.
My pleasure, thanks for the kind remarks.
Asswad’s war is a sewer......
Saddam got uppity. At least Gaddafi was cooperating.
Cannon Fodder. Also a good way to get rid of marginal elements. The Russians and the Germans both used prisoner or punishment brigades during WW-2 to clear or wear down tough objectives saving the better brigades for mopping up
On one hand my heart is heavy for so many of God’s children suffering in that War.
On the other hand, the mooselimbs selected their path and they follow their allahs will, death.
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