The security forces in Iran are recruiting children as young as 12 to monitor checkpoints and perform other responsibilities during the capital’s conflict, according to a Revolutionary Guards official who spoke to state television on Thursday.
Since the beginning of the war, checkpoints have appeared all throughout Tehran, with locals reporting youths in plainclothes manning them. Some of them had machine guns.
Iranian officials have launched a recruitment drive named “For Iran” in Tehran to register people to join the security services, with the minimum age of recruits reduced to 12.
Rahim Nadali, a Guards official in Tehran, told state television that kids as young as 12 may sign up to aid the Guards and the Basij youth volunteer militia fight “the global bully,” referring to the United States.
He stated that the tasks include “collecting security data and operational patrols” as well as organizing car caravans in the city at night.
“At the Basij checkpoints and patrols that you see across the cities, we had a very high number of volunteers among young people and teenagers who wanted to participate,” he said.
“Considering the ages of those requesting to join, we have now lowered the minimum age to 12 years old, because children aged 12–13 want to be involved.”
Tehran locals have informed AFP journalists outside the country that they have seen armed teenagers roaming the city since the battle with the US and Israel began.
“Military pickup trucks with heavy weapons mounted on them block the roads and search cars. You pass them, and just 100 meters ahead, there are several private cars with teenagers holding Uzis (sub-machine guns), again stopping vehicles,” said resident Kaveh.
“When a missile hits somewhere, the area is immediately sealed off. Untrained teenagers with Kalashnikovs shout orders at people—’Stand here, stand there’—and regularly fire warning shots into the air, he said.
Another Tehran resident stated that followers of the Islamic Republic “take cars fitted with speakerphones, and they give them flags, and they march with lots of noise and shout slogans in the streets” at night.
