RASC News Agency: A former Afghanistani soldier who had sought refuge in Iran to escape Taliban persecution was viciously murdered on Saturday evening, June 1, in the Shurabad district on the southern outskirts of Tehran. The victim, Gholam Reza Hamdard, was reportedly attacked and fatally stabbed by a group of Iranian citizens in an incident that has sent shockwaves through Afghanistan’s exiled military community. Family members of the deceased told Local sources that the attack occurred shortly after Hamdard returned from a local market where he had gone to purchase food. According to eyewitness accounts, he was confronted by a group of men who hurled degrading slurs and xenophobic insults at him. The verbal confrontation quickly escalated into physical violence, culminating in Hamdard being stabbed multiple times and left to die in the street.
Gholam Reza Hamdard, originally from Nahrin district in Baghlan province, had served in the ranks of the former Afghanistan’s National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and was wounded in combat during the final years of the war against the Taliban. As a result of his injuries, he had lost one leg and sustained severe damage to both arms. He fled to Iran approximately three years ago, seeking safety from the Taliban’s retaliatory campaigns against former military personnel. Despite his status as a war-disabled veteran and asylum seeker, Hamdard lived in conditions of extreme vulnerability, marginalized by both Iranian society and the international community that once championed Afghanistan’s democratic forces. His tragic death highlights the perilous existence faced by thousands of exiled Afghanistani veterans who have been abandoned by the global powers that once relied on their sacrifice.
Following the killing, Hamdard’s friends and family approached the Afghanistan embassy in Tehran currently under Taliban control seeking assistance. Their plea was met with silence. Neither Taliban embassy officials nor Iranian authorities have issued any statements or initiated meaningful investigations, and Hamdard’s body remains in a Tehran morgue, awaiting justice that may never come. This incident is not an isolated tragedy but rather a chilling reflection of a broader humanitarian crisis. The Taliban’s systematic persecution of former military personnel has triggered a wave of forced displacement across the region. Thousands of ex-soldiers, pilots, intelligence officers, and police commanders have sought refuge in neighboring countries, particularly Iran and Pakistan. Many are living without legal status, under constant threat of deportation back to Taliban-controlled territory, where imprisonment, torture, or execution often awaits.
In recent weeks, reports have emerged of at least one former Afghanistani air force pilot who committed suicide after receiving an Iranian deportation order. These are not isolated psychological breakdowns they are the direct result of a calculated international neglect and the Taliban’s relentless campaign of vengeance against the men and women who once defended the republic. The silence of the Taliban’s diplomatic outposts, including their embassy in Tehran, in the face of such atrocities reveals the regime’s absolute disinterest in the welfare of Afghanistani citizens abroad particularly those associated with the previous government or military. Far from protecting their nationals, Taliban authorities continue to operate as instruments of ideological control, extending their surveillance and threats across borders.
Meanwhile, host countries like Iran, instead of offering protection or legal asylum, increasingly tolerate or ignore violence against Afghanistani refugees particularly those seen as remnants of the former state. For many ex-soldiers like Hamdard, life in exile is not merely difficult it is an ongoing battle for survival. The murder of Gholam Reza Hamdard is not just an act of xenophobic brutality. It is the end result of an international system that has turned its back on those who risked everything to resist tyranny. As global powers normalize diplomatic relations with the Taliban, and aid agencies return to Kabul under restrictions dictated by an authoritarian regime, the forgotten defenders of the former republic are left to die anonymously in alleys and morgues across foreign capitals.
Unless urgent international attention is directed at the plight of these former Afghanistani servicemen and women, more lives will be lost and the final chapter of Afghanistan’s war will be written not in battle, but in exile and betrayal.
