Russia Wants To Recruit US-Educated Afghan Commandos, Ex-Military Commander: Big Mistake To Leave Them

Afghan Command Force. (Wikimedia Commons/Staff Sgt. Markus Maier/U.S. armed forces)

JAKARTA - Afghanistan's former army chief admits leaving the country's commandos was a big mistake, with Russia looking to recruit them for the war in Ukraine.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the United States during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were flown out of the country when the US military withdrew from Afghanistan.

Because many of the Afghan commandos do not work directly for the US military, they are not eligible for special US visas.

"They are the ones who fought until the last minute. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never negotiated," explained General Hibatullah Alizai, as quoted by Arab News from The Associated Press on November 2.

"Leaving them was the biggest mistake," said Afghanistan's last military chief before the Taliban took power last year.

As previously reported, US-trained Afghan special forces were offered to join Russia to fight in Ukraine, with the lure of salaries, visas, and protection, when they could not return to their country.

General Hibatullah Alizai. (Twitter/@TOLOnews)

General Alizai said most of Russia's recruitment efforts were focused on Tehran and Mashhad, a city near the Iran-Afghanistan border, where many people had fled.

It's not clear how many members of the Afghan special forces who fled to Iran have been wooed by Russia, but one told the AP he communicated via the WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who were considering an offer.

He said many people like himself fear deportation and are angry at Washington for abandoning them.

"We thought they might make a special program for us, but no one thought of us," criticized the former commando, who requested anonymity because he feared for the safety of himself and his family.

"They have just left us all in the hands of the Taliban," he said.

The command said its offer included a Russian visa for himself as well as his three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan. Others have been offered extensions of their visas in Iran.

He said he was waiting to see what others in the WhatsApp group decided, but thought many would accept the deal.

Afghan Commando Troops with NATO troops. (Wikimedia Commons/Kyle McNally)

As previously reported, Russia wants to attract thousands of former elite Afghan commandos into the "foreign legion".

They were offered a salary of $1,500 per month, up to the promise of a safe haven for themselves and their families, thus avoiding being deported home to what many assumed would be death at the hands of the Taliban.

"They don't want to go to war, but they have no choice," said one of the Afghan generals Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen or so commandos in Iran had sent the message most fearing deportation.

"They asked me, 'Give me a solution. What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us,'" he said.

Arghandiwal said the recruitment was led by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

A US GOP Congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger Afghan commandos, trained by US Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, could pass information on US tactics to ISIS, Iran or Russia, or fight for them.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently acknowledged being the founder of the Wagner Group, dismissed the idea of ​​continuing efforts to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers as "crazy bullshit."

The US Department of Defense also did not respond to requests for comment, but a senior official said the recruits were not surprising, given Wagner has tried to enlist soldiers in several other countries.

Breaking - Gen. Hibatullah Alizai, the commander of the Special Operations Corps, was appointed as the chief of army staff, replacing Gen. Wali Ahmadzai, officials confirmed. #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/McEPXcgGX0

— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 11, 2021