Iran Has Begun Recruiting Children In Preparation For A Ground War With The U.S.

The Financial Times revealed the details.

President Donald Trump has deployed some 17,000 sea and airborne troops to the Middle East, which could undertake a ground operation to seize Iranian islands, the country's main oil complex or enriched uranium reserves. Iran, according to military experts, could field up to a million active and reserve soldiers. In addition, authorities have launched a massive recruitment drive for volunteers, including children.

On state television and in text messages, residents are being urged to take part in the fight against "threats posed by the US-Zionist enemy to Iran's coasts, islands and borders," the Financial Times reported. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is recruiting people for various assignments, including military missions. The IRGC has also announced that it is recruiting volunteers as young as 12 years old to serve in patrols and checkpoints, care for the wounded, and cook.

The Defa Press, an agency affiliated with Iran's Defense Ministry, published a volunteer recruitment poster featuring a smiling teenager and a girl in a hijab, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Given the enthusiastic response from our dear nation, we decided to create an environment where all those interested can play their role in the defense of the homeland according to their knowledge and abilities," Rahim Nadali, IRGC deputy director for culture and arts, told Defa Press.

Propaganda is again spinning the image of 13-year-old Mohammad Hossein Fahmideh, who is considered a national hero because he threw himself in front of an enemy tank with a bunch of grenades during the war with Iraq in the 1980s, the FT writes.

The US-based non-profit organization Human Rights Defenders in Iran said it had already received reports of child deaths. In March, 11-year-old Alireza Jafari was killed in a drone strike while he was with his father at a checkpoint guarded by the IRGC's Basij militia. His mother told local media that her husband had taken her son to the "understaffed" checkpoint "to prepare him for the events ahead."

The recruitment of children under the age of 15 is considered a war crime under international law, which Iran is obliged to follow, Human Rights Watch said:

"There is no justification for a military recruitment campaign involving children, much less 12-year-olds.... Children in military facilities are at grave risk of death and injury...

Iranian authorities appear willing to risk the lives of children to attract additional manpower. [They should] cancel this campaign and prohibit all military and paramilitary forces from recruiting children under the age of 18."

According to analysts, if the US decides to launch a ground operation, the main targets could be Kharg Island, where Iran's main export terminal is located, other Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz such as Abu Musa (claimed by the UAE), or a storage site for enriched uranium for destruction or export.

But Iran intends to make sure that under either option the U.S. suffers maximum military and political losses, Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House in London, told the WSJ: "I expect Iran will first try a massive drone strike and then expand the attacks to neighboring countries."

Military experts, including those at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, estimate that Iran has about a million active-duty and reserve troops. Among them, about 190,000 are highly motivated IRGC fighters.

Most of the soldiers are poorly trained and equipped with old weapons. But the troops deployed along the coast have more extensive combat experience. In addition, the IRGC navy has hundreds of small speedboats armed with missiles, torpedoes and mines capable of inflicting significant damage on enemy vessels. In addition, like the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Iran has built an extensive network of tunnels to be used against the invaders.

The Iranian troops on the islands and nearby shores, sheltering in the fortified tunnels, will be able to bombard the attackers with multiple FPV drones and man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, former Russian Air Force officer Gleb Irisov, who worked closely with Iranian troops during his service in Syria, told the WSJ:

"There will be no half-measures here. The U.S. will need to land more than 100,000 troops along the entire coastline to defend and protect these islands and the strait. Any other option would result in huge American casualties."

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