Liwa Zainabiyoun

Overview

Liwa Zainabiyoun is a Pakistani Shia fighting force controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Its members fought in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The force was organized around protection of the Sayyeda Zainab shrine in Damascus, but its role extended well beyond guarding that site. Zainabiyoun fighters supported regime operations in Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia, and were stationed in Deir ez-Zor. The United States has designated the group a terrorist organization, and Pakistan has banned it.

Liwa Zainabiyoun formed part of a wider Iranian military network that drew foreign Shia fighters into Syria. Its closest counterpart was Liwa Fatemiyoun, whose fighters were recruited principally from Afghan communities. The IRGC’s Quds Force organized and trained Zainabiyoun and retained a reporting relationship with it. Quds Force officers, and at times officers from Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, led its units on Syrian battlefields. These command arrangements placed a Pakistani force within Iran’s intervention to sustain the Assad regime.

One estimate placed Liwa Zainabiyoun’s strength at 2,500 to 4,000 fighters near the end of Assad’s rule. That estimate concerned the militia as a whole, not the number later present in Iraq. After the Assad regime fell in December 2024, Zainabiyoun personnel crossed into Iraq alongside Liwa Fatemiyoun fighters. A February 2025 estimate placed 1,000 to 1,200 Zainabiyoun fighters in Iraq. Their presence at Iraqi government-funded militia bases became a point of friction between Baghdad and Tehran.

Founding and ideology

Iran expanded its recruitment of Afghan and Pakistani fighters during the Syrian civil war as the Assad regime struggled to supply enough personnel for its campaigns. The IRGC had supported local irregular forces in Syria from 2012, then increasingly relied on foreign Shia formations. Liwa Zainabiyoun was organized within this effort as a Pakistani contingent. Its name and initial stated mission were tied to the Sayyeda Zainab shrine in central Damascus, a site of deep significance to Shia communities. Protection of the shrine supplied a religious rationale for deployment, while the militia’s subsequent operations served the Assad regime across several fronts.

Many fighters originally lived in Parachinar and nearby villages in northwestern Pakistan. Some later lived in Iran or the United Arab Emirates before joining the force. Core members came from al-Mustafa International University, a religious institution based in Qom with branches in Islamabad and Beirut. Those connections gave the militia access to Pakistani recruits already linked to institutions operating across national borders. Iranian investment in Parachinar and other Pakistani Shia communities formed part of the broader environment in which the force recruited.

The group’s outlook joined Shia religious symbolism to service in the Iranian regime’s regional military network. Statements attributed to Zainabiyoun commanders during the Syrian war expressed loyalty to Iran’s supreme leader and willingness to fight on fronts beyond Syria. Such statements illuminate the ambitions voiced by particular commanders; the militia’s documented activities center on service under Iranian direction in Syria and, after December 2024, the movement of its personnel into Iraq. Its shrine-protection identity therefore describes one purpose of its formation, while its combat record shows a broader role in Iran’s support for Assad.

History

Liwa Zainabiyoun emerged during the early years of Iran’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. Analysis of Shia combat deaths in Syria identified Pakistani nationals killed while serving in the brigade and linked both Zainabiyoun and the Afghan Liwa Fatemiyoun to the Quds Force. Their deployment reflected an Iranian effort to build foreign formations able to reinforce Assad’s forces. Iran treated Afghan and Pakistani Shia militias as a substantial component of its campaigns against rebel-held territory, alongside Hezbollah, Iraqi armed groups and IRGC personnel.

Quds Force training took Zainabiyoun recruits through Mashhad before deployment to Syria. Some received specialized weapons instruction, including a 45-day sniper course. The route from Pakistani communities through Iran to Syrian battlefields gave the IRGC a means to organize fighters from outside Syria under its own command structure. By the middle of the war, Pakistani combat deaths provided further evidence that Zainabiyoun personnel were participating in fighting, rather than serving solely as guards at a religious site.

In Syria, the brigade supported Assad regime operations around Damascus and farther north in Aleppo and Latakia. Its presence also extended east to Deir ez-Zor, including Albukamal near the Iraqi border. These deployments placed Zainabiyoun alongside other Iran-backed forces across distinct parts of the war. The group was part of a combined Afghan and Pakistani Shia militia force estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers; that combined figure must not be read as an estimate of Zainabiyoun alone.

The fall of Assad’s regime in December 2024 changed the position of these foreign fighters. Some Zainabiyoun and Fatemiyoun personnel crossed from Syria into Iraq through al-Qaim with their weapons. Others entered Iraq from Iran after evacuation from Russia’s Hmeimim Air Base, following service in northern and central Syria. Iraqi authorities allowed those entries. The resulting movement shifted personnel from an Iranian-supported Syrian campaign into facilities associated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

Structure and leadership

Liwa Zainabiyoun was organized by the Quds Force and continued to report to it. That relationship distinguished the brigade from a force directed solely by local Syrian commanders, even while it fought in support of Assad. Quds Force officers sometimes led Zainabiyoun units on Syrian battlefields. Hezbollah officers also sometimes led its units, reflecting operational ties among the foreign formations deployed within Iran’s Syrian military network.

A Zainabiyoun commander was identified by the name “Karbala” in an account describing the training of recruits in Mashhad. The account also described specialized instruction for some fighters before their deployment. No single named commander encompasses the brigade’s broader command arrangements: its documented organization, training and reporting relationship ran through the Quds Force, while battlefield leadership could include Iranian or Hezbollah officers. The distinction matters because Zainabiyoun’s Pakistani membership did not make it an independent Pakistani military institution.

The militia operated alongside Liwa Fatemiyoun without being the same organization. Zainabiyoun drew Pakistani Shia fighters; Fatemiyoun drew Afghan Shia fighters. Both served Iran’s military effort in Syria and later appeared at Iraqi PMF facilities. Their shared sponsor, overlapping deployments and joint movement after Assad’s fall explain why reports often discuss them together, but estimates for one group, or for their combined strength, describe different populations.

Funding and sponsors

The IRGC was Liwa Zainabiyoun’s controlling sponsor, with the Quds Force responsible for organizing, training and directing the formation. Zainabiyoun belonged to the network of foreign militias Iran assembled to support Assad’s regime. Analyses of Iran’s Syrian intervention identify such formations as supplied, funded and commanded by Iran. The Quds Force provided the command framework that connected Pakistani recruits, training in Iran and operations in Syria.

After the regime’s collapse, housing and material support for Zainabiyoun personnel came through Iraqi militia infrastructure. PMF and Kata’ib Hezbollah commands initially hosted Zainabiyoun and Fatemiyoun fighters in compounds at al-Qaim. Those compounds had also served as transit hubs for Iranian ballistic missiles and other materiel bound for Syria and Lebanon. Fighters were subsequently moved to PMF camps, including Jurf al-Sakhar and Camp Ashraf. The use of these sites tied their Iraqi presence to established Iran-aligned armed networks.

Camp Ashraf, in Iraq’s Diyala province, was formally a government-controlled PMF base run by the Badr Organization. Zainabiyoun and Fatemiyoun personnel were reported there after crossing into Iraq. Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq helped facilitate the fighters’ movements. The sequence from al-Qaim to other PMF facilities shows how Iraqi armed groups provided places and transport for personnel displaced by the loss of Assad’s Syrian bases.

Attacks and operations

Liwa Zainabiyoun’s Syrian operations combined protection of the Sayyeda Zainab shrine with combat support for Bashar al-Assad. Around Damascus, its stated shrine mission overlapped with the regime’s need for armed reinforcements. The brigade also supported operations in Aleppo and Latakia, locations beyond the shrine’s immediate area. Its deployments formed part of Iran’s use of foreign fighters to reinforce Syrian government forces during the civil war.

In eastern Syria, Zainabiyoun fighters were stationed with Liwa Fatemiyoun near the center of Albukamal in Deir ez-Zor. Their position placed them close to the crossing between Syria and Iraq, within an area used by multiple Iran-aligned formations. Air raids targeted Zainabiyoun positions on the Al-Hamdan Airport road near Albukamal and on Al-Haggana Street inside the city. These reported strikes establish the brigade’s presence at specific eastern Syrian positions; they do not identify every operation in which its members fought.

Zainabiyoun personnel also operated within a wider campaign in which Iranian officers coordinated foreign Shia militias, Hezbollah and Assad’s forces. Its Pakistani fighters sustained combat deaths in Syria. The militia’s service across Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia and Deir ez-Zor makes its battlefield role distinct from the single-site account implied by shrine protection alone. After December 2024, the documented movement of armed members into Iraq marked a change in deployment following the loss of the Assad regime they had supported.

Designations and international status

The United States has designated Liwa Zainabiyoun a terrorist organization. It has also designated Liwa Fatemiyoun. Pakistan has banned Zainabiyoun, which recruits Pakistani fighters. These measures apply to the organization and are distinct from the religious identity or nationality of its members. They also shaped scrutiny of the Iraqi facilities that housed fighters after Assad’s fall.

The fighters’ reception in Iraq created a dispute within Iraq’s relationship with Iran. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani and other senior Iraqi officials repeatedly raised the presence of foreign armed groups with Iranian officials. In February 2025, Iraq’s government was reported to have demanded that Iran remove Zainabiyoun and other foreign militias that had entered Iraq after the change of power in Syria. The demand concerned armed personnel who had crossed with their weapons, even as Iraqi government-funded militia facilities had housed members of the groups.

Current status

Following Assad’s fall in December 2024, Liwa Zainabiyoun no longer had the same Syrian regime partner for which it had fought. Some members moved into Iraq from Syria through al-Qaim; others were allowed to enter from Iran. PMF and Kata’ib Hezbollah commands first housed fighters at al-Qaim, after which personnel moved to facilities including Jurf al-Sakhar and Camp Ashraf. The reported presence at Camp Ashraf placed them at a base formally under Iraqi government control and run by the Badr Organization.

In February 2025, an estimate put 1,000 to 1,200 Zainabiyoun fighters in Iraq after their crossing from Syria. This was a count of personnel in Iraq, separate from the earlier estimate of 2,500 to 4,000 fighters for the organization as a whole. Baghdad’s reported demand for their removal showed that their continued presence had become a matter of direct discussion with Iran. Zainabiyoun’s path from Pakistani recruitment, through Quds Force training and Syrian combat, to Iraqi PMF facilities illustrates the regional reach of the Iranian military network that organized it.