The Followers of Zainab Brigade (
Arabic: لِوَاء الزَّيْنَبِيُون,
romanized: Liwā’ az-Zaynabīyūn,
Persian: لواء زينبیون or لشکر زينبیون, Liwa Zeinabiyoun or Lashkare Zeinabiyoun,
Urdu: لواء زینبیون), also known as the Zainebiyoun Brigade or Zainebiyoun Division, is a Pakistani
ShiaKhomeinist militant group actively engaged in the
Syrian Civil War.[36][5] It draws recruits mainly from Shia
Pakistanis living in Iran,[5][37] with some also Shia Muslim communities living in various regions of Pakistan.[4][38]
It was formed and trained by the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards and operates under their command.[5] Initially tasked with defending the
Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque,[6][7] it has since entered frontlines across Syria.[4] Its dead are buried primarily in Iran.[5][7] Approximately 158 of their fighters have died in Syria as of March 2019, excluding those killed in
Israeli airstrikes.[39] According to 2019 estimates, the total number of Pakistani fighters in the brigade barely exceeded 800.[18]
The core of Liwa Zainebiyoun is constituted of former members and fighters of the
Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, the former
Shia Islamist armed organisation in
Pakistan which fought against the
Anti-Shia sectarian leadership of the banned terrorist groups
Sipah-e-Sahaba and
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, It had strong presence in various Shia communities in
Pakistan and it was headquartered in
Thokar Niaz Beg the Shia majority town of
Lahore, ran a "virtual state within a state" in the 1990s until its collapse in 2007 or 2010.[40] Later in 2013 its former members formed the Zainebiyoun Brigade as a
Pakistani Shiite volunteer group after the formation of
Liwa Fatemiyoun Brigade, the Afghan Shiite volunteer group under the orders of
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,[41] According to news sources affiliated with the IRGC, the group was founded in 2013 and start armed operations late in 2014 Its official purpose is to defend the
Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque (the shrine of
Zaynab bint Ali, sister of
Imam Hussain and granddaughter of the prophet
Muhammad) and other Shia holy sites in Syria.[6] It operates primarily in
Damascus defending these holy sites. However, since 2015, it has also engaged in offensive action around
Daraa[5][42] and
Aleppo, along with other foreign Shia fighters.[4][43]
On 9 April 2015, seven fighters were killed defending the Imam Hasan Mosque in Damascus and were buried in
Qom, Iran.[6] In March 2016, six fighters were killed defending the
Imam Reza shrine, also buried in Qom.[49] On 23 April, five more fighters were killed.[50] An estimated 69 fighters were killed between November 2014 and March 2016.[4]
The Brigade fought in
Iraq against
ISIL during the
War in Iraq (2013-17) with other foreign Shia fighters to defend and protect holy sites and Iraqi peoples from the
ISIL.[54]
In 2021, Israeli media report that the Brigade have influence in shia majority areas of
kashmir and
Iran made systematic attempts to recruit
Kashmiris for Brigade, A number of Kashmiri veterans of Brigade who fought against the
Islamic State in Fallujah and Mosul have returned to
Kashmir and they have joined the separatist
Hurriyat Conference and have close relations with
Hizbul Mujahideen.[55]
In December 2015, a
bomb killed 25 and injured over 30 in Parachinar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility, and said that it was "revenge for the crimes against Syrian Muslims by Iran and Bashar al-Assad" and threatened to continue terror attacks if Parachinar citizens did not "stop sending people to take part in Syrian war".[30]
The
government of Pakistan officially denies the presence of Pakistani fighters in Syria, and has been reluctant to take back members of the brigade caught in Syria.[46]
Disappearance and death of the brigade commander
The brigade's former commander, Muhammad Jannati, also known as Haj Haider, was a
PakistaniPashtun Shia militant from
Parachinar, Pakistan.
In 2017, he went missing while fighting alongside Syrian government forces during the
Hama offensive (March–April 2017). The IRGC-affiliated
Tasnim News Agency reported his death in 2019, claiming that the body of Haider was transferred to Tehran two years after he was killed in the Syrian city of Hama by
ISIS terrorists. According to Tasnim News Agency, the identity of the commander of the Zainabiyoun Brigade was identified after a DNA test, and he was transferred to
Tehran where he was to be buried. The news agency also reported that “his body has no head and no arms" and that he was killed in action in April 2017 in the Tal Turabi area in the
Hama Governorate, during the
offensive.[56]
Relationship with Liwa Fatemiyoun & Hezbollah Afghanistan
According to researcher Phillip Smyth,
Liwa Fatemiyoun, Liwa Zainebiyoun and
Hezbollah Afghanistan were originally different groups, but showed such great overlap in ideology and membership by 2014 that they had become "incorporated". In contrast, researcher Oved Lobel continued to regard Liwa Fatemiyoun and Hezbollah Afghanistan as separate organizations in 2018, though groups were part of Iran's "regional proxy network".[57] Other sources such as Jihad Intel and Arab News have treated the militas as the same organization.[58] Researcher Michael Robillard called Liwa Fatemiyoun a "branch of Hezbollah Afghanistan". Iran is also known to have established branches of
Hezbollah in
Afghanistan and Pakistan, with several pro-Iranian groups operating in both countries by the
Soviet–Afghan War.[59][60]: 175
Designation as a terrorist organization and ban
Liwa Zainebiyoun is designated as a terrorist organization by the
U.S. State Department in 2019, saying it is composed of Pakistani nationals and provides "materiel support" to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC and in 2024 the Interior Ministry of Pakistan banned the Zainebiyoun Brigade, saying it "is engaged in certain activities which are prejudicial to the peace and security" of Pakistan. It did not elaborate, A ministry official confirmed the authenticity of the March 29 order and placement of the Zaynabiyoun Brigade on a government list of 79 proscribed organizations.[61]
^
abRondeaux, Candance; Toumaj, Amir; Ammar, Arif (28 July 2021).
"Iran's Tricky Balancing Act in Afghanistan". War on the Rocks.
Archived from the original on 22 March 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. It also established the Fatemiyoun's Pakistani sister unit, the Zeynabiyoun Brigade. Thousands of ethnic Afghan and Pakistani Hazara foreign fighters fought and died with those units to help save the Assad regime.
^Ahmed, Roohan (15 May 2019).
"Missing men and the neighbouring country that cannot be named". Samaa News. Retrieved 29 April 2022. According to Aamir Rana, a security analyst and the director of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, scores of Pakistani Shias have been to Syria. "Many were arrested from Punjab and Parachinaar after they returned to Pakistan," Rana said.
^Ali, Imtiaz (22 June 2017).
"CTD seeks ban on 25 websites spreading 'terrorism, extremism'". Dawn. Retrieved 29 April 2022. Meanwhile, SSP CTD Omer Shahid Hamid told Dawn that many people from Pakistan, including Karachi, had gone to fight in Syria belonging to both Sunni and Shia communities.