Iranian regime relying on foreign militias to bolster security efforts, suppress protests

The Iranian government has not officially recognized the role of these foreign militias.

The Iranian regime has used foreign militias to man checkpoints across Tehran to support its security forces and contain civilian protests, the Iranian regime said. Telegraph reported Friday, citing videos circulating on social media.

According to the Telegraphwhich confirmed the videos with testimonies from several Tehran residents, members of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces militia were seen searching vehicles and enforcing “hijab regulations” in cities across the country.

The PMF, also known in Arabic as “Hashd al-Shaabi,” also reportedly conducts neighborhood patrols alongside the regime’s security forces.

“Right now, for several nights here, there are people at our neighborhood checkpoint who do not speak Persian,” the official said. Telegraph said a Tehran resident. “They wear Hachd al-Shaabi uniforms and communicate only with gestures and a few words interspersed in Arabic or Persian. »

The Afghan Fatemiyoun militia was also reportedly deployed alongside the PMF on Iranian streets.

“Before, there was only the Bassij [militia]but now the composition has changed. Several people wearing light-colored Arab military uniforms are there, and they are behaving much harsher,” the resident said.

“It’s like they have no restrictions. Even the Iranians don’t tell them anything.”

Furthermore, the Telegraph noted other reports from Karaj, a town west of Tehran, where residents encountered foreign personnel who manned checkpoints with “less restraint than their Iranian counterparts” and who communicated primarily through gestures and in Arabic.

The Iranian government has not officially recognized the role of these foreign militias.

The regime imposes terror on the streets

In an interview with 103FM in late April, social media expert Effi Banai said the images coming out of Iran painted a complex and increasingly tense picture.

“We see the pressure on the regime on social media,” Banai said. “They brought in militias from abroad, from Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. »

He explained that the militias “move in trucks, in civilian clothes, armed with machine guns. The soldiers speak Arabic rather than Persian,” [which the locals notice and comment about on social media].”

“They are imposing terror on the streets so that people will not come out and protest. The regime knows that its population is hungry, desperate and afraid to take to the streets again.”