Liwa Fatemiyoun

Liwa Fatemiyoun (Arabic: لِوَاء الْفَاطِمِيُّون, romanized: Liwā’ al-Fāṭimīyūn, lit. 'Fatimid Banner'; Dari: لواء فاطمیون), also known as Lashkar-e-Fatemiyoun (Arabic: فرقة فاطميون, romanized: Firqat al-Fāṭimīyūn; Dari: لشکر فاطمیون), Fatemiyoun Brigade, or Fatemiyoun Division, is a primarily Shia Afghan militia. It formed in 2013 to fight in Syria during the Syrian civil war on the side of the Syrian government prior to the collapse of the Assad regime. The group's officially designated purpose was the defence of the shrine of Zaynab bint Ali, and to fight "takfiri terrorists" in Syria, which would come to include the Islamic State (IS). It is funded, trained, and equipped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and fights under the command of Iranian officers. Both the Fatemiyoun Brigade and the Iranian government downplay their relationship with one another, despite clear coordination and the brigade's operation under the auspices of the IRGC. Liwa Fatemiyoun is also closely associated with Hezbollah Afghanistan. It is primarily made-up of Afghan/Hazara migrants living in Iran.

By late 2017, the unit was presumed to have numbered between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters. According to Zohair Mojahed, a cultural official in the Fatemiyoun Brigade, the group suffered 2,000 killed and 8,000 wounded up to the end of 2017 while fighting in Syria. A minimum of 925 deaths among the brigade's troops were documented based on monitoring of open source coverage of funeral services, but these burials do not take into account the bodies abandoned on the ground, executed prisoners, the missing, etc. It was reported in 2019 that as many as 50,000 Afghans in total had fought in Liwa Fatemiyoun, up until then.