Funeral of Iranian fighter killed in Syria (file)
Funeral of Iranian fighter killed in Syria (file)Reuters

Iran has passed a law allowing the government to grant citizenship to the families of foreigners killed while fighting for the Islamic republic, the official IRNA news agency reported Monday, in a move likely meant to further shore up the regime's support for the Assad regime in Syria.

"Members of the parliament authorised the government to grant Iranian citizenship to the wife, children and parents of foreign martyrs who died on a mission... during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) and afterwards," it said.

Citizenship must be awarded "within a maximum period of one year after the request", IRNA added.

Iran's outgoing conservative-dominated parliament will serve until late May. The Iranian parliament is a symbolic body which can only pass laws authorized by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

No figures are available on the number of foreign fighters killed during the Iran-Iraq war, but Shia Muslim Afghans, and even a group of Shia Iraqis, fought alongside Iranian forces against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The law could apply to "volunteers" from Afghanistan and Pakistan who are fighting in Syria and Iraq against Sunni rebels.

Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and provides financial and both direct and indirect military support to his regime.

Tehran says its Fatemiyoun Brigade, comprised of Afghan recruits, are volunteers defending sacred Shiite sites in Syria and Iraq against Sunni extremists like those of ISIS. In reality, observers and opposition forces say the Afghans are often used as front line shock troops in battles against both jihadists and other rebel groups.

The "volunteers" are often convicts or illegal immigrants to Iran lured to fight in Syria with the promise of naturalization and financial reward, together with threats of imprisonment and expulsion if they refuse.

The Islamic republic denies having any boots on the ground and insists its commanders and generals act as "military advisers" in Syria and Iraq. This, despite ample evidence of Iranian fighters from the Revolutionary Guards, Basij government paramilitary and the Iranian regular army fighting alongside and often even commanding loyalist forces on the Syrian front lines - a phenomenon which has cost hundreds of Iranian lives already.

Iranian media regularly report on the death of Afghan and Pakistani volunteers in Syria and Iraq, whose bodies are buried in Iran. More than three million Afghans live in Iran, one million as legal migrants.  

AFP contributed to this report.