By Said M. Azam

Iran’s missile attacks on Al-Assad and Irbil military bases in Iraq could be the beginning of the most fatal and chronic of all conflicts that the region has ever witnessed in the last five decades. While president Trump has warned of further attacks against Iranian targets including cultural sites and imposition of additional and more severe sanctions on Iran, the Islamic regime has vowed to retaliate the assassination of its top general by taking on itself the mission of ending United States’ military presence in the region of West Asia. US military killed General Qasem Soleimani head of the Quds Force, the branch that is responsible for overseas operations of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, near Baghdad airport last Friday. The assassination of General Soleimani has triggered Iran’s retributory missile attacks on Al-Assad and Irbil that host American troops. Iran attacked US military bases in Iraq because Soleimani was killed in that country by the United States. Iran may launch its attacks on American bases in Afghanistan on pretext of preventing, potential, attacks by the United States from Afghanistan soil. That will be a tit-for-tat pretext as the United States killed Soleimani because Trump’s administration believed the deceased general was potentially planning attacks against the US interests in the Middle East. The question is not that whether Iran would seek fulfilment of its mission in the aftermath of Soleimani’s death in Afghanistan; it is however, which means Iran would use for achieving its purpose.

In Afghanistan, government officials and majority of prominent political figures condemned the killing of Soleimani. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) troops under the leadership of the United States have been based in Afghanistan since almost two decades. Afghanistan has a 500 mile long border with Iran. Many of the Afghan political elites, apparently, condemned the assassination mostly out of fear rather than to be genuinely sympathetic for the deceased general. They are fearful of retaliatory actions by Iran in response to the killing of General Soleimani against American and NATO Targets in Afghanistan. Their pragmatic approach expresses their appreciation for the vulnerable situation that Afghanistan is placed in. Exactly between a rock and a hard place.

Why Afghanistan?

Iranians and Afghans have close cultural ties. The two countries formed the core of ancient Persian empires for centuries. Iran has frequently been accused of providing logistical support to the Taliban movement which has been fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was toppled by the US-led international coalition in 2001. Iran enjoys historic and close relationship with the former anti-Taliban Afghan factions. These factions form the backbone of post-Taliban regime that the United States has heavily sponsored since its installation in 2002. Iran used to be one the major supporters of anti-Taliban forces before the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Iran hosts about three million Afghan refugees. Iran’s Quds Force recruited up to 50,000 of youths from Afghanistan and from communities of Afghan refugees in Iran to fight in Syria in support of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus. The Afghan force was founded in 2014 and was named the Fatemiyoun Army.

The United States has been negotiating with the Taliban movement to reach a peace deal that will put an end to the longest war in the history of the United States through political settlements. Though the two sides have continuously expressed optimism for a successful conclusion of their talks, a peace deals has not yet been struck. Major Afghan Shia factions who have traditionally opposed the hard-line Sunni Taliban, have unanimously condemned the killing of General Soleimani. Some of these factions allegedly facilitated recruitment of Afghan youths to the Iranian sponsored Fatemiyoun Army. Members of the same factions are considered, historically, to be major supporters and also beneficiaries of NATO presence in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan youths migrate annually to Iran for seeking employment. Iran has an effective influence over groups within the US-installed post-Taliban regime in Kabul as well as those fighting the regime.

It will not be very surprising that Iran coordinates its retaliatory actions against American military and civilian targets with its proxy groups in Afghanistan. The Taliban and the Fatemiyoun Army, a Sunni hard-line and a Shia-hard line group respectively, might cooperate with each other to inflict consequential blows on American targets in Afghanistan. Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, leader of the influential People’s Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan congratulated Soleimani for his effective and victorious leadership in supporting the al-Assad regime in Damascus during his visit to Tehran in November 2017. The effective and prominent role of the Fatemiyoun Army in defeating anti-al-Assad factions in Syria was praised by Mohaqiq and also by the senior Iranian authorities in the same ceremony. The Fatemiyoun has been created by the same branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that General Soleimani headed. The daughter of the deceased general while speaking to the crowd of hundreds of thousands of mourners in Tehran on Monday warned families of American servicemen to expect arrival of “coffins” of their loved ones from places like Iraq, Syria, and also Afghanistan. A clear indication that Iran actively looks at Afghanistan as a site for its retaliation. Her remarks were further underpinned when the Iranian ambassador in Kabul said on Monday that his country had been left with no other option but to retaliate the killing of Soleimani. Tens of thousands members of the Fatemiyoun Army have returned to Afghanistan after winning the civil war for al-Assad in Syria.

In addition to the Taliban and the Fatemiyoun Army that Iran can influence, so that the latter to offer themselves as means for the Iranian ends, there are several dozens of international terrorist groups that are operative in Afghanistan. As the Taliban regime collapsed, and the new regime never became able to extend its writ to all over Afghanistan in the previous two decades, consequently, a conducive environment has been created for these international groups that include the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to establish their bases in the country. The ISIS for example has taken responsibilities for some of the deadliest attacks against civilian and public targets in Afghanistan. Primarily, the Shia population and institutions have been the targets of ISIS terrorist attacks. Many in Afghanistan believe that ISIS has specifically been targeting Shia communities because most members of the Fatemiyoun Army belonged to these communities.

While there is the fear that Iran would launch missile and aerial attacks in addition to using its influence over the Afghan factions to inflict fatal blows on American personnel in Afghanistan, there is an equal fear that groups like ISIS which saw Soleimani as their arch enemy to exploit the situation in their own favour. The fear is that ISIS, or other groups with similar motives, may attack American personnel and facilities with a hope that the United States, believing groups sponsored by Iran to be behind those attacks and consequently directing its own further retaliatory strikes against Iran. ISIS will hit two birds with one stone. They have been fighting US troops in Afghanistan anyway. US dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb which is also known as the ‘mother of all bombs’ on ISIS caves in eastern Afghanistan in April 2017. Whereas, Iran is a primary target for ISIS for its role in fighting the militants in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere as well as their intrinsic hostility with Shiisim. But for Afghanistan that will serve as an additional factor for deterioration of security in the already volatile country.

Iran demands compensation and blood money for the killing of Soleimani in the form of either a revenge or removal of US sanctions against its economy. On Sunday, Iran ended all its commitments to the nuclear deal that it had signed in 2015. However, Iranian officials have also said that Iran’s decision could be reversed if the United States lift its sanctions on the country.

Where Soleimani was explicitly killed on the spot by a drone attack, sanctions have been having murderous, however covertly, consequences for Iran’s economy and society; just like pestilence. In reality sanctions have been affecting the socio-economic wellbeing of the entire region including of United States’ major and strategic allies in the Asia-pacific region: India, South Korea, and Japan for example. Sanctions have already caused killings of hundreds of civilians on the streets of Iranian cities in recent weeks, well before Soleimani was assassinated. That will be an auspicious news not only for Iran but for the entire region; more so for the aforementioned countries which are heavily dependent on imports of oil and gas from the Middle East; if the sanctions’ pestilence is eliminated altogether and immediately. And with that Iran renews its commitment to implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal that Iran signed with the world major powers including the United States in 2015 and from which the Islamic regime walked away last Sunday. Iran’s commitment to abide the articles of the JCPOA and refraining from its retaliatory actions against the United States and the decision of the United States to lift its sanctions against Iran will provide a more logical alternative and equilibrium to a fully-loaded war between the two. The equilibrium in which the United States and Iran both will feel as to be the winners. The US has already eliminated the most committed enemy of the United States within the high ranking apparatus of the Islamic regime and Iran will receive relief from the pestilence of sanctions.

If war between Iran and the United States is going to be inevitable, then, NATO and the US are better to move their troops to those bases within Afghanistan that are difficult for the members of the Fatemiyoun Army to access. With this logic those bases would be well away from major urban areas of Afghanistan, some of them closer to the Iranian border; Kandahar and Shindad airfields or the Shorabak camp for example. For the United States, the Taliban and other groups like ISIS and the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan are familiar enemies. In addition, the entire geography of Afghanistan falls within the range of Iranian missiles. Therefore, does not make a big difference for Iran to launch its missile attacks on American bases whether they are closer or further away from its border. Whereas the Fatemiyoun Army will be an addition which would act solely for the interests of Iran. Alternatively, NATO needs to redeploy additional forces to Afghanistan so that they are able to effectively withstand current and those challenges that are yet to come from other groups, chiefly from the Fatemiyoun Army.  

Said Mohammad Azam. Ontario-based independent researcher of energy geopolitics of Central and South Asia. Recipient of Fulbright Scholarship from the US State Department. Alumnus of The American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) and the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. Former Afghanistan Correspondent of Agence France Press (AFP).

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