March 24, 2014
Shia fighters tip balance in Assad’s favour in Syria
By Erika Solomon in Beirut
Shia Muslim foreign fighters motivated by an increasingly politicised religious identity are coming to Syria to fight for President Bashar al-Assad in numbers that some observers argue match or even outnumber the Sunni militants who have joined the armed opposition.
While the estimates are contested, they show how much Syria’s war has become embedded in the fabric of Shia communities across the region – posing both advantages and risks to Mr. Assad and his main backer, Iran.
The number of independent Shia fighters in Syria is estimated to range between 8,000 to 10,000, mostly from Lebanon and Iraq, though anecdotal evidence suggests some come from as far as Azerbaijan and Afghanistan. The number of Sunni fighters is thought to be similar, with foreigners coming from around the world, but mostly from Arab countries.
YouTube videos with catchy pop tunes are modelled for recruitment. One shows gunmen posing in a picture where their faces are cut out, as if waiting to be replaced by those of new fighters. “The time has come to leave and join Hussein,” it says, referring to a leader whose martyrdom in 680 is central to Shia dogma.
The impact of mobilisation goes well beyond the front lines, says Lokman Slim, a Shia activist in Beirut who opposes and monitors Hizbollah, the Shia militant group in Lebanon that has provided thousands of fighters to support Assad.
“It’s not just the two fighters shooting at each other. Each fighter needs around three or four people behind them,” he said. You have communications needs, you have first aid, you need drivers . . . So when you say Hizbollah has sent 5,000 fighters, it means the party has actually involved 20,000 people.”
Estimates of the number of foreign fighters in Syria are based on social media and death counts. Although the numbers cannot be confirmed, it is clear that the foreign involvement stokes the sectarian element of Syria’s conflict and highlights the proxy war between Shia Iran and rival Sunni Gulf Arab states supporting the rebels.
The mobilisation of Shia fighters appears to be more successful than that of their Sunni counterparts, some argue, because it is organised and encouraged by Iran, from where recruits are trained and sent to Syria in groups, say Syrians who have joined Pro-Assad militias.
“The main big difference is the state backing. It is a far more organised process,” says Phillip Smyth, an analyst at the University of Maryland who follows Shia militias. Tehran’s systematic support makes Shia fighters a more unified force than that of the Sunni foreign fighters who tend to travel alone to Syria and join disparate groups.
The Shia fighters are associated with a shift in the balance of Syria’s three-year conflict in Mr Assad’s favour. In late 2013 his forces secured a belt of territory around Damascus and central Syria, up to the coastal stronghold of his own minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.
“Assad was losing big swaths of territory then . . . When they came in, there was a clear shift in the balance of power on the ground,” said Janaina Herrera, analyst at the New Generation Consulting group in Beirut.
A tool used to motivate Shia fighters is the sect’s own apocalyptic scripture, which predicts that the saviour, or Hidden Imam, will return after a massive battle in Syria. Some clerics encouraging young men to fight have equated the largely Sunni rebels with the prophesied army of an enemy leader who will appear before the Imam’s return.
“Whoever wants to prepare for that moment, what is his combat readiness today?” Iraqi Shia politician and cleric Jalal al-Deen al-Sagheer asks in a speech posted on the internet. “If he has not taken a course in combat training how is that practical?”
Hayder al-Khoei, Iraqi expert at Chatham House, the London think-tank, said young Iraqis with no combat experience have also become eager to join, often receiving only two weeks of training in Iran.
“Young kids from Iraq go to Iran, they’ve never used a gun in their life before, they get trained for two weeks and then they send them to the front lines in Syria,” he said.
Economics could be another factor in the growing numbers of Shia heading to fight. Youth unemployment is nearly 30 per cent in Lebanon and about 20 per cent in Iraq. Shia militias offer the rare chance of a decent salary, whether they work on neighbourhood watches or in Syria’s battlegrounds.
“Instead of sitting around smoking, they can do something and get paid,” said a resident of the impoverished southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hizbollah is dominant. “Families of a martyr are always taken care of. Their education and healthcare are free.”
But the Shia mobilisation that has been a boon to Mr Assad could yet undermine him. Just as Sunni radicals initially helped rebels advance but later weakened them by pursuing their own agendas, so could Shia fighters if they find their interests diverging.
Iran’s patronage dampens that risk, but it still exists. One popular Iraqi Shia YouTube music video shows fighters dancing with Kalashnikovs to a chorus with the line, “We are not for Bashar, our concern is the Shia”.
Adnan al-Kanani, the spokesman of the Iraqi Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, insists Iraqi fighters have no love for Mr Assad, whom he accuses of sending Sunni militants to Iraq during American occupation.
“We support the right of the Syrians to change their government. We have our own issues with Assad’s regime,” he said. “Some believe we support the regime – No.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2dfaf756-a9fa-11e3-8bd6-00144feab7de.html#axzz2wyLMQOxB
Iran Support Shiite Militia In Iraq and Syria / shia shiite
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