Shiite Iran, Assad's key military and financial patron, denies enlisting Afghan mercenaries to fight alongside Syrian forces in the four-year conflict
against opposition Sunni rebels that has left more than 240,000 people dead and millions displaced, AFP reports.
But interviews with Afghan fighters and relatives of combatants killed in Syria point to a vigorous and sometimes coerced recruitment drive of
Shiite Hazara refugees by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps propping up Assad's floundering regime.