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Elated after his pilgrimage, Mr. Amin returned to Iran but couldnt find any work for three months. As often happens with Afghan refugees in Iran, Mr. Amin was humiliated and discriminated against. He lived with the constant fear of being deported. Iran isnt our country. It belongs to strangers, Mr. Amin said. Either you suffer and try to make some money or you die.

Last winter Iranian authorities presented Mr. Amin with an interesting proposition. He could gain legal status in Iran and be free of the fear of deportation. The Iranians offered him a 10-year residency permit and a monthly salary of $800 if he would go to Syria to fight to protect the shrine of Sayyida Zainab, a granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.

Around 2013, when Mr. Assads military was losing ground to the rebels, Iran poured billions of dollars into Syria, brought in Hezbollah fighters and began raising Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places with significant Shiite populations. Iran does want to protect the major Shiite shrines in Damascus, Aleppo and Raqqa, but the use of foreign Shia militias in the Syria war was simply another fork in the larger battle for control and influence in the Middle East run by Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps elite Quds Force.

The relationship between Iran and Syria goes back to the Syrian support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, their shared enmity toward Israel, and Syrias being the essential axis of transit between Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Most of the weapons in the Hezbollah inventory are sent by Iran through Syria. Mr. Assads control over Syria allows Tehran to resupply Hezbollah and work toward building a connection to the Mediterranean Sea.

A few months after Iran asked Hezbollah to join the fighting in Syria alongside Mr. Assads forces, it began raising other Shiite militias. Fatemiyoun Division (formerly Brigade), a militia of Shia Afghan refugees, was formed around early 2014 and trained by both the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah veterans. Its strength has been estimated to be between 8,000 and 14,000 men. The Iranian authorities maintain the fighters are volunteers.

The recruits to the Fatemiyoun Division were initially from among the Shia Hazara Afghans, who settled in Iran after the Soviet occupation, after the civil war in the early 1990s and the subsequent Taliban rule. Their recruitment had echoes of how Pakistan the other major host of the Afghan refugee population recruited the Pashtun Sunni Afghan refugees and their children to form the Taliban in the mid-1990s.

In the past few years, Iranians have expanded the recruitment to undocumented Afghans, like Mr. Amin, recently arrived from Afghanistan in search of economic opportunity. Apart from the refugees economic anxiety and precarious legal status, the Iranians exploit the Shia faith of Afghan refugees to recruit them to fight for the Assad regime in Syria.

Iranian propaganda framed the Syrian war to these refugees as a Shia struggle for the defense and protection of the faith and its holy sites. The fighters have little or no knowledge of the political-security context into which they are marching, said Ahmad Shuja, a former researcher with Human Rights Watch. They do not speak Arabic, most of them have never been beyond Afghanistan or Iran, many are barely literate, most are devout Shiites.

Mr. Amin believed that the Syrian war dated back to a dispute between Jabhat al-Nusra (which was officially founded in 2012) and Mr. Assad. He had been made to believe that the war broke out after the leader of Nusra (who, he said, was related to Mr. Assad) wanted to build a store over a mosque. Mr. Assad, an Alawite, rushed to defend the mosque and protect all religious sites, especially the Shia shrines, in the country. In turn, in Mr. Amins telling, Nusra called for Mr. Assads downfall and the destruction of the countrys shrines.

Irans Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah fighters trained Mr. Amin and various Afghan recruits of the Fatemiyoun Division in using weapons and tactical movement for a month. Some were trained as snipers; some were trained in tank warfare. After the training they were flown to Syria and sent to the front lines in Damascus and Aleppo.

Iranians and Mr. Assads forces used the Afghan recruits as the first-wave shock troops. We would be the first in any operation, Mr. Amin recalled. Several short memoirs by current and former Afghan fighters in Syria published on the Telegram app, which Mr. Shuja studied, recount the Afghans being sent to fight the most difficult battles and speak about heavy casualties among Afghan fighters and the eventual victory after multiple assaults.

Afghan fighters have fought in Damascus, Hama, Lattakia, Deir al-Zor, Homs, Palmyra and Aleppo. In November and December, Mr. Amin was stationed in Aleppo, where the Fatemiyoun Division was tasked with helping the Syrian Army retake the eastern part of the city from rebel groups. He and hundreds of other young Afghans fought under the orders of the Revolutionary Guard.

The foreign Shiite militias, which included fighters like Mr. Amin, played a crucial role in supporting Mr. Assads regime and provided the key ground forces in the decisive battle of Aleppo. The victory in Aleppo turned the tide for Mr. Assad and for Iran, bringing it closer to, as the Syria scholar Joshua Landis put it, the consolidation of this Iranian security arc, stretching from Lebanon to Iran.

Several hundred Afghans have died fighting Mr. Assads and Irans war in Syria. The bodies of slain Afghan fighters were paraded around the streets of Tehran and in Qom, in northern Iran, in elaborate ceremonies before their burials. Both Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and General Suleimani have visited the families of Afghan militiamen killed in Syria and expressed gratitude for the sacrifices their sons made for defending the holy shrines and Islam.

In January, I met Murtaza, a 21-year-old Afghan at the Elliniko Airport refugee camp in Athens. He had lived in Qom. They never make a show of the Iranian fighters who die in Syria, only the Afghans, said Murtaza, who claimed to have seen graves of hundreds of Afghans killed in Syria in Qom. It is their way of trying to convince the Iranian people that only Afghans, and not Iranians, are dying in Syria.

In June 2016, Haitham Maleh, a Syrian opposition leader, addressed a letter to President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan requesting an end to the influx of Afghan fighters. Afghan deaths in Mr. Assads war have forced several Afghan clerics to speak out against the Iranian strategy. Even Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the warlord who recently made a peace deal with the Afghan government, spoke about it on his return to Kabul. Some estimates put the number of Afghans killed in Syria around 600. Mr. Amin said 15 of his friends were killed in Syria.

After being wounded in Aleppo, Mr. Amin returned to Bamyan two months ago with a 10-year Iranian residency in hand and promise of a home in Iran, or in postwar Syria, if he would like to live there. A majority of the Afghans who fought with him in Syria have stayed in Iran. He keeps in touch with them on the Telegram app.

Bamyan remains peaceful and poor; the roads leading to the province are still dangerous. Mr. Amin has returned to his old life as a subsistence farmer. I came back because I wanted to see what would work out better, Mr. Amin told me. If things are good here, I will stay. If they get worse, then I will go back to Iran, but now I dont have to worry about deportation.

Ali M. Latifi is a journalist based in Kabul.

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How Iran Recruited Afghan Refugees to Fight Assad's War - New York Times

The new US policy will ban all arrivals from Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia for 90 days, if the new arrivals have no relationship with a person or entity in the United States.

"At the time when Iraq was being overrun by Daesh, by ISIS, did the United States make the slightest move in defense of it? Or was it the Iranian nation that rendered aid to the Iraqi nation and Iraq government?" Larijani told CNN in an exclusive interview.

"Had we not assisted them, Baghdad would have been occupied by ISIS. It is with the help of Iran that Daesh, ISIS, is on its last breath in Iraq (and Syria)," Larijani said.

Larijani said "numerous Iranians" live in the United States, and called on the American administration to provide proof that any of them has been involved in terrorism.

"I have spoken about this before, so many Iranians live in the United States, study in the United States, engage in business in the United States, which one of them have engaged in terrorism?" he asked.

The Parliamentary speaker argued the ban was unlikely to work, because terrorists "seldom to never" enter a country under their own names or nationalities.

"President Trump and American officials are aware of this. The terrorists must be defeated at the source. Where are their sources? Where are they? They are in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq," he said.

Larijani questioned whether Saudi Arabia had the right to "dictate" conditions to another independent nation.

"Is it logical, is it mature for one country to dictate to another and say you must do as I say? Well you must cease relations, for example, with Iran?" he said. "I do not believe that ... the Saudis carry this sort of weight to say these sort of things."

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ISIS would own Baghdad without our help, Iran official says - CNN

The U.S. government said it's ready to seize a Manhattan skyscraper from an Iranian-American charity to benefit victims of terrorism after a jury found Thursday that the charity's majority ownership was derived from financial dealings that violated sanctions against Iran.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said the owners of the office tower near Rockefeller Center "gave the Iranian government a critical foothold in the very heart of Manhattan through which Iran successfully circumvented U.S. economic sanctions."

"For over a decade, hiding in plain sight, this 36-story Manhattan office tower secretly served as a front for the Iranian government and as a gateway for millions of dollars to be funneled to Iran in clear violation of U.S. sanctions laws," Kim said in a statement. "In this trial, 650 Fifth Avenue's secret was laid bare for all to see, and today's jury verdict affirms what we have been alleging since 2008."

The verdict in the civil case was sure to be appealed. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier ordered the case to go to trial after U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest ruled in favor of the United States.

Over the last month, lawyers for the Alavi Foundation argued that the charity was unaware if Iran was secretly benefiting from a partner who owned 40 percent of the building. The Alavi Foundation owns 60 percent.

Kim said the building was worth at least a half billion dollars, though some estimates put its worth closer to a billion dollars.

Kim said the sale of the building, combined with several other properties around the country, would represent the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in U.S. history.

The prosecutor said the verdict "allows for substantial recovery for victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism."

The government is seeking to turn over proceeds of a sale to holders of over $5 billion in terrorism-related judgments against the government of Iran, including claims brought by the estates of victims killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Forrest aided that effort Thursday by issuing a written opinion finding the Alavi Foundation liable for the turnover of its real estate properties to the benefit of its creditors, including terrorism victims.

"We are gratified to win this victory for the victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism, some of whom have waited more than two decades for this day," attorney James Bernard said in a statement.

In another statement, Alavi Foundation attorney John Gleeson said: "The Alavi Foundation is disappointed by today's verdict and by the court's decision in the related cases and is considering its options."

It was unclear what effect the verdict will have on the Alavi Foundation, which supports a Queens school among other charity works.

The verdict seemed to spare a Catharpin, Virginia, property after jurors concluded its funds did not violate sanctions and were not used in money laundering activities. The government said the verdict should allow it to seize properties in Houston; Carmichael, California; and Rockville, Maryland.

The Fifth Avenue building was erected in the 1970s on property acquired by the not-for-profit corporation. It was valued at $83 million in 1989 and has steadily risen in value.

Government lawyers said Iran has secretly controlled the building for years as millions of dollars in rent payments are funneled to it from a partnership made up of Alavi and a shell company fronting for a secret interest held by the state-owned bank of Iran, Bank Melli.

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Jury finds that NYC skyscraper owner violated Iran sanctions - Chicago Tribune

Updated |An Iranian official said Thursday hecould confirm the death of the elusive leader of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), but provided little details surrounding the claim.

Ali Shirazi, a representative of the foreign branch of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary GuardCorps, known as the Quds Force, said he was sure Baghdadi was dead, but declined to elaborate on how or when the elusive cleric had been killed. The claim comesafter Russia announced on June 16 it believed it had killed Baghdadi during a May 28 airstrike on what it called a meeting of hundreds of ISIS militants and officials outside of the jihadists' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. It's uncertain whether Shirazi's claim Thursday was related to Russia's. Previous rumors of Baghdadi's death have proven to be false or mistaken on numerous occasions.

Related: What happens without an ISIS leader? If Russia killed Baghdadi, Islamic State could collapse

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"Terrorist Baghdadi is definitely dead," Shirazi told Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency, which later retracted the quote, according to Reuters.

Islamic State militant group (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi makes his first and only known public appearance at the Grand al-Nuri mosque in the center of Iraq's second city, Mosul, July 5, 2014. Iran, which has actively fought ISIS abroad for years, said it confirmed Baghdadi's death, weeks after Russia said it likely killed the cleric in an airstrike in Syria's Raqqa. Social Media/Reuters TV

Iran and Russia have partnered with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against ISIS in Syria and all three factions have made lightning advances nationwide against the jihadists. The U.S. is also heavily involved in the fight against ISIS and is sponsoring a majority-Kurd coalition of Arabs and ethnic minorities known as the Syrian Democratic Forces as they surround and storm Raqqa city. The U.S. has increasingly targeted forces supportive of Assad and has attacked Iran-backed forces in Syria's southeastern Badiya region at least three times. Despite the U.S.'s efforts to curb Iranian influence in the country, pro-government forces have secured large parts of the country's border with Iraq, where Iran also plays a major role in battling ISIS.

In neighboring Iraq, Iranbacks majority-Shiite Muslim militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces. After a major offensive by the Iraqi military, Kurdish militants, the Popular Mobilization Forces and a U.S.-led coalition, only remnants of the group remain in the country, mostly in Iraq's second city of Mosul. Iraqi government forces reclaimed Thursday the historic Grand al-Nuri mosque where Baghdadi declared his so-called caliphate in 2014 and local military officials forecasted the upcoming demise of the group in the near future.

"Their fictitious state has fallen," Brigadier General Yahya Rasool. spokesperson for Iraq's Joint Operations Command, told state TV,according to Reuters.

This story has been updated to reflect the exact dates of the Russian Defense Ministry's announcement that Baghdadi had likely been killed and of the airstrike that Moscow said appeared to havestruckhim and his supporters in Raqqa, Syria.

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Iran: ISIS Leader 'Baghdadi is Definitely Dead' - Newsweek

My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents spent their lives in this neighborhood, Aviva, an 84-year-old Jewish grandmother in Tehran, Iran, explained to me over the phone, as her warm voice shivered with years of memories. My ancestors, in fact, settled in this country more than 30 centuries ago.

Avivas reference to 3,000 years of history points also to the origins of the Jewish community in Iran, then known as Persia. The peaks and valleys of Iran Jewish history date back to the late biblical times. The Jewish population predominantly moved to Persia during the Achaemenid Empire, when Cyrus the Great invaded Babylon. The Jewish community became an important, integral and influential part of Persian society, and some scholars argue that at some point, 20 percent of the population was Jewish. People who were once captives became important historical figures, such as Queen Esther. Persian kings including Artaxerxes, Cyrus, and Darius permitted the Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.

When Arabian Islam conquered Persia, the Jewish community faced a new sociopolitical and socioreligious landscape: They were put in a specific classification (dhimmis) and had to pay special taxes, instead of the Muslim zakat, in order to compensate for the caliphates social welfare, protection, and security.

After Shiism became the official state religion in the 16th century, the status and rights of the Jews deteriorated even more. Under the rule of some kings, the Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge and clothing that separated them from others in the community, allowing them to become targets of hatred. Fear became a part of their everyday lives. In what was known as the Allahdad incident in March 1839, forced conversion against Jews was carried out. The lives of some were spared because they converted to Islam in order to save their lives.

In 1948, Iran still had a Jewish population of about 150,000 peoplethe largest Jewish population in the Middle East after Israel, mainly concentrated in Tehran, Esfahan, and Shiraz. While many Jews lived peacefully in Iran after the founding of the State of Israel, the Islamic Revolution of Iran radically altered the status of Irans Jewish community.

Since 1979, the situation has been different, the seemingly composed and patient Aviva said. We learned to adjust our lives and adapt to the new environment to survive like many others. We dont talk about politics, mind our business, and try not to run into problems.

Some Iranian politicians and media outlets give the impression that Jews have been living in Iran comfortably with equal rights since the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif boasted in New York: We have a history of tolerance and cooperation and living together in coexistence with our own Jewish people, and withJews everywhere in the world. The Islamic Republics founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, famously said to a delegate from the Jewish community that the Jews will be protected and he issued a fatwa for that:

In the holy Quran, Moses, salutations upon him and all his kin, has been mentioned more than any other prophet. Prophet Moses was a mere shepherd when he stood up to the might of pharaoh and destroyed him. Moses, the Speaker-to-Allah, represented pharaohs slaves, the downtrodden, the mostazafeen of his time. Moses would have nothing to do with these pharaoh-like Zionists who run Israel. And our Jews, the descendants of Moses, have nothing to do with them either. We recognize our Jews as separate from those godless, bloodsucking Zionists.

But facts appear to tell us a different story than the narrative Khamenei, Rouhani, Zarif, and other current Iranian leaders attempt to spread, a story that is neither tolerant nor kind. Since 1979, the numbers of the Jewish population are down by more than 90 percent, and fear is a familiar companion for those who remain, whether because they are too old to leave or because they remain attached to the country of their birth.

The execution of Habib Elghanian, the head of the Jewish community, a businessman, and a philanthropist, was the first powerful blow that befell the Jewish community and sent an intimidating massage from the Islamic Republic. This action appeared to be taken mainly for the purpose of imposing fear. The charges against him included friendship with the enemies of God and being a Zionist spy. His granddaughter, Shahrzad Elghanayan, said that after a 20-minute trial on trumped-up charges he was executed. In the span of less than an hour, an influential voice was silenced. That message, that terror, rippled through the community.

In the current climate of the Iranian governments antagonism toward Israel, the remaining Jewish population of Iran, which numbers perhaps 9,000, is caught in complex circumstances. Irans Jewish community has to be extremely cautious of showing any sympathy toward Israel. If they exhibit any sign of this, they risk serious criminal charges, such as being labeled an Israeli spy. Consequences of these charges range from torture to death.

Each word spoken, each action taken, and all movement throughout the community is calculated and evaluated carefully to prevent these consequences. Still, this is not enough. The government authorities intervene in the few Jewish schools that remain. Jews are not allowed to become school principals. The curriculum has changed, and activities are monitored to make sure, for example, that the main language is Persian and not Hebrew. Distribution of Hebrew texts or the teaching of Judaism is risky and strongly discouraged.

Even within school walls, the Jewish community cannot expect any form of safety or freedom. Current restrictions and discriminatory policies against Jews include bans against Jewish people in key governmental and significant decision-making positions: A Jewish person cant be a member of the influential Guardian Council, a commander in the army, or serve as the president of the nation, among other restrictions. Jews are not permitted to become a judge at any level or assist in the judicial or legislative systems. Furthermore, Jews are banned from becoming members of parliament (the Consultative Assembly) through general elections.

Jews are not allowed to inherit from Muslims. But, if one member of a Jewish family converts to Islam, he would inherit everything. This law seems to be designed to promote conversion to Islam by providing financial incentives.

There exist several forms of discrimination in the penal code as well. Qisas, or the right to equal justice, has not been specified in the penal code for the Jewish people. For example, if a Jew kills a Muslim, the family of the victim has the right to ask for execution as a penalty, but if a Muslim kills a Jew, the right of a family member to demand the execution of the murderer would be left to the discretion of the judges.

Irans constitution lays out in detail the protections for practicing and preaching Islam, but not for Judaism. Article 12 of the Iranian Constitution states:

The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Jafari school, and this principle will remain eternally immutable. Other Islamic schools are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites. These schools enjoy official status in matters pertaining to religious education, affairs of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and wills) and related litigation in courts of law. In regions of the country where Muslims following any one of these schools constitute the majority, local regulations, within the bounds of the jurisdiction of local councils, are to be in accordance with the respective school of fiqh, without infringing upon the rights of the followers of other [Islamic] schools.

One might wonder how Iranian leaders dare to boast about equality between Jews and others while intimidating entire segments of its population into silence under laws that are manifestly unequal. To further insult the communities, they claim that Jews remain in Iran because they are treated equally. The impression is given that the Iranian government has created such a welcoming space for its Jewish community that they would freely choose to live there. There is no mention of the vast majority of people that have fled the oppressive laws and policies and settled in other countries for the sake of their physical safety.

So who stays in Iran? Some of the Jews who have stayed in Iran are elderly and unable to tolerate travel or establishing a new home in a foreign country. Some Jews are determined to protect their sacred places and synagogues, or family homes.

Asked why she does not immigrate to another country, Aviva gave me a different reason. When I die, I want to die in my land, she said. I want to be buried next to my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. This is where they drew their first and last breaths. This is where they wept their toys of joy and sorrow. Their blood, sweat, and lives are all part of the soil, and the sky here, and mine is as well. This is my home.

Her simple words echo through my mind. Iran is her home.

***

Read more from Tablets special Iran Week.

Majid Rafizadeh is an Iranian-American political scientist, President of the International American Council, and the author of Peaceful Reformation in Iran's Islam. His Twitter feed is @Dr_Rafizadeh.

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Majid Rafizadeh - Tablet Magazine