Three former Afghan generals told the AP that the Russians want to lure thousands of former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion,” offering a fixed salary of $1,500 a month and promising a safe haven for themselves and their families to avoid deportation. . home to what many assumed would be death at the hands of the Taliban. “They don’t want to go to fight — but they have no other choice,” said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozens of commandos in Iran with whom he has sent messages fear deportation the most. “They ask me, ‘Give me a solution? What do we have to do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us.” Arghandiwal said the recruitment is being conducted by Russian mercenary force Wagner Group. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and speaks the language. The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from US soldiers who fought with Afghan special forces that the Taliban intended to kill them and that they might join forces with US enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their former ally. A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the risk that Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Marines and Army Green Berets — could end up leaking information about U.S. tactics to Islamic State, Iran or Russia, or fight for them. “We didn’t get these people out like we promised, and now he’s going home to rest,” said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan, adding that the Afghan commandos are very capable, tough fighters. “I don’t want to see them on any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the Ukrainians.” Mulroy was skeptical, however, that the Russians would be able to convince many Afghan commandos to join them, because most he knew were driven by a desire to make democracy work in their country rather than being hired guns. The recruitment comes as Russian forces are reeling from the Ukrainian military advance and Russian President Vladimir Putin is pursuing a mobilization effort that has seen hundreds of thousands of Russian men flee the country to avoid conscription. Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently identified himself as the founder of the Wagner Group, dismissed the idea of an ongoing effort to recruit former Afghan soldiers as “crazy nonsense.” The US Department of Defense also did not respond to a request for comment, but a senior official said the recruitment was not surprising given that Wagner is trying to recruit soldiers in several other countries. It was not clear how many Afghan special forces members who fled to Iran have been courted by the Russians, but one told the AP that he is in contact via the WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who are considering offers. He said many like him fear deportation and are angry at the US for abandoning them. “We thought they might create a special program for us, but nobody even thought about us,” said the former commando, who asked not to be named because he fears for himself and his family. “They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.” The commando said his offer included Russian visas for himself, as well as his three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan. Others have been offered visa extensions in Iran. He said he’s waiting to see what others in the WhatsApp groups decide, but believes many will take the deal. American veterans who fought with Afghan special forces have described to the AP nearly a dozen cases, none independently confirmed, of the Taliban going door-to-door looking for commandos still in the country, torturing or killing them or doing the same to family members if they are not found. nowhere. Human Rights Watch said more than 100 former Afghan soldiers, intelligence officers and police have been killed or forcibly “disappeared” just three months after the Taliban took over despite promises of amnesty. The United Nations, in its report in mid-October, recorded 160 extrajudicial killings and 178 arrests of former government and military officials. The brother of an Afghan commando in Iran who accepted the Russian offer said Taliban threats made it difficult to refuse. He said his brother had to hide for three months after the fall of Kabul, moving between the homes of his relatives while the Taliban searched his home. “My brother had no choice but to accept the offer,” said the commando’s brother, Murad, who would give only his first name for fear the Taliban might track him down. “This was not an easy decision for him.” Former Afghan army chief Alizai said much of the Russian recruitment effort is focused on Tehran and Mashhad, a city near the Afghan border from which many have fled. The generals who spoke to the AP, including a third, Abdul Jabar Wafa, said none of their contacts in Iran knew how many had accepted the offer. “You receive military training in Russia for two months and then go to the battle lines,” read a text message sent by a former Afghan soldier in Iran to Arghandiwal. “A number of staff have left, but they have completely lost touch with their families and friends. The exact statistics are unclear.” An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the Americans during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were airlifted out when the US military withdrew from Afghanistan. Since many of the Afghan commandos did not work directly for the US military, they were not eligible for special US visas. “They were the ones who fought until the last moment. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never negotiated,” Alizai said. “Leaving them behind is the biggest mistake.”
