Checkpoints staffed by security personnel and volunteers have proliferated across the capital since the conflict began, initially marked by military vehicles and road barriers. While some visible fortifications have been scaled back following recent airstrikes, residents say patrols remain widespread, with teenagers now playing an increasingly prominent role.

Witness accounts describe adolescents aged 13 to 14 manning checkpoints, stopping vehicles and conducting searches. A 28-year-old resident told AFP that she was stopped at two checkpoints in northern Tehran, where teenage boys carrying weapons inspected her phone and personal belongings without consent, calling the encounter intrusive.

Another resident said that beyond formal military checkpoints, groups of youths in private vehicles were independently stopping cars, opening doors and checking dashboards and mobile devices.Authorities have acknowledged lowering the minimum age for Basij recruitment to 12, citing high levels of interest among younger volunteers.

Rahim Nadali, an official with the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, said on state television that the decision reflected demand from children seeking to participate in defense efforts.The Basij, an auxiliary force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has historically played a central role in internal security operations.

It was also reported to have been involved in suppressing anti-government protests in January, during which thousands were killed.The expanded use of minors has drawn concern from rights groups and analysts. Some observers interpret the move as an indication of manpower shortages, while others see it as a sign of a more hardline approach by authorities seeking to consolidate control amid external and internal pressures.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, urged supporters to maintain a presence on the streets, framing domestic mobilization as part of a broader strategic effort alongside military and maritime pressures, including tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.

Analysts say the intensified street presence is aimed at deterring potential unrest, particularly after calls from U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraging opposition activity at the outset of the war.

In addition to checkpoint duties, pro-government groups have organized nighttime patrols, using vehicles equipped with loudspeakers to broadcast slogans and display flags in residential areas.

Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the government was increasingly reliant on a core base of ideologically committed supporters to maintain order. He noted that this strategy reflects deeper challenges to the state’s legitimacy but has proven effective in sustaining control during wartime conditions.

Human Rights Watch said the recruitment of children under 15 for military roles could constitute a war crime under international law and warned that their deployment exposes them to heightened risks, including potential targeting in military strikes.

Bill Van Esveld, the group’s associate director for children’s rights, said the policy suggested authorities were willing to endanger minors to bolster security capacity.

Hossein Salami said on October 31 on state-run TV that the plan would-be set-in motion on November 10. The IRGC commander used the word “attack” to describe the plan.   

“We will attack the places where the coronavirus is located and has created a platform for distribution”, Salami said.

The IRGC Commander in Chief said the Basij would go “house to house” and quarantine infected people. He also said 54,000 local Basij bases would take part in the plan.

In a report by the state-run Mehr News Agency, Iran’s Interior Minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on October 31 that the “plan of comprehensive screening and identification” of COVID-19 patients should be “implemented as a priority”.

“We need to identify anyone infected with the virus and those they were in contact with”, Rahmani Fazli said.

According to Rahmani Fazli, the plan is to “reduce the number of people who come to hospitals”.

Following the announcement, Iranians took to Twitter to express their suspicions over the plan.

Iranians accused the regime of using the COVID-19 plan as a pretext to attack homes and suppress further anti-government protests. They also mocked the IRGC commander for using the word “attack” to refer to anti-COVID measures.

One Twitter user said, “attacking the places where the coronavirus is located” was synonymous to “attacking the gathering places of protesters“, and that “stopping the spread of the virus” actually meant “we will carry out maneuvers in the key points of the city” to intimidate would be protesters.   

Another Twitter user said with this plan “anyone protesting on the streets will be attacked (with a bullet) for being infected with and spreading the virus, and will die because of the severity of the disease. And those who have a less severe case of the virus will be transferred to quarantine centers (Tehran’s Evin prison)”.

Another user tweeted, “They want to attack residencies with the coronavirus, and who knows who they want to suppress under the pretext of fighting the virus.”

“The regime has listened to Khamenei about November 2019 protests when he said they should not have let the protests get out of hand. They don’t want to face Iranians on the streets, and these are preemptive measures to stifle any movement at the source”, another tweet said.

As admitted by many Iranian regime officials, brutal suppression and the execution of dissidents, reduction in the oil price, reduction of exchange reserves, governmental corruption, and the government’s mismanagement regarding the spread of Covid-19 with more than 106,000 deaths at this time, has brought Iran to the point of a potentially unprecedented socio-political revolt around the anniversary of the November 2019 uprising.

Analyst Hasan Bayadi, from Iran, expressed how much the regime fears new revolts. On August 30, 2020, he told the state-run Entekhab website: “There is a possibility of unprecedented socio-political events before the end of December. Due to the government’s mismanagement, people believe in no political current. They are discontent and former dialogues have borne no fruit. So we must rigorously analyze the existing problems.”

Mardomsalari state-run daily wrote on August 31, “The way out of a dead-end is using offensive tools… The protest movements of December 2017 and November 2019 and the wrong response to them was not a good example. It is clear that violent acts can have very negative consequences.”

MP Hashem Harisi said on June 29, 2020, “The current situation of Iran’s society is not tolerable. Each day the gap between the people and the government widens. The situation is too fragile. We cannot sit and wait for the problems to solve themselves.”

Under such circumstances, the regime is planning preventive measures as before. According to reports obtained from inside Iran, on Monday, September 14, Mohammad Yazdi, commander of the ‘Mohammad Rasool-allah’ corps of Tehran announced that a plan called ‘Neighborhood Security’ would be carried out. This plan will use the capacity of the Basij paramilitary bases and will form ‘hit squads’ in different regions of Tehran to, as he puts it, provide the security of all the capital’s neighborhoods. He said that these squads are tasked with confronting ‘thugs, thieves and security disruptors’ but the regime is actually getting ready to confront the danger of any popular uprising, ready to erupt at any moment. Other than that, addressing petty crime such as theft has always been a police task.

So far, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as the main apparatus of the mullahs’ rule, has always come up with the security and anti-humane plans for suppressing people’s protests. It disguises this under the pretext of ‘giving a hand to the police force’. In 2008 and then during the controversial elections of 2009, the IRGC carried out the plan of having Security Patrols in groups of five in 1000 points of various cities throughout the country.

The regime knew that after the outcome of a predetermined election in which Ahmadinejad would once again become the president, protests would erupt. In the late fall of 2017, a month before the January 2018 uprising and while there were severe economic crises due to the return of the sanctions, another security plan was carried out using IRGC patrols, called “the epic of security and service” by which the regime committed the crime it did in the killings of that month.

With the current state of Iranian society, when the coronavirus pandemic and the regime’s inaction leaving more than 106,000 deaths are added to the economic crisis, poverty and hunger, the regime is clinging to the plan of ‘Neighborhood Security’ and forming the ‘hit squads’, spoken of for a long time. These squads are the force of suppression, spreading fear and horror throughout the cities.

A month ago, Mohammad Yazdi announced: “Reinforcement of Neighborhood Basij bases is one of our main priorities in the current year. These bases have become weak but as the honorable leadership has ordered (Basij must be present in all the neighborhoods) we are trying to carry out this order the best way we can.”

“The enemy has plans to take advantage of the improper economic condition and provoke people to confront the Nezam (Islamic Republic regime) and provoke riots,” he had formerly said.

‌But the people of Iran both know and have experienced in all these years that what Khamenei and other regime officials, as well as its security apparatus, have done in planning for the suppression of nationwide protests radiates from the nightmare that has shadowed them all. Khamenei and other regime officials know that it is not only the regime’s Basij force and its bases that have weakened, which they confess to, but the regime in its entirety is trembling in fear of popular revolt.

The people of Iran now want the UN and especially the UN Security Council (UNSC) to trigger the sanctions stated in six resolutions against this regime in response to its executions and mass killings; if not Khamenei will continue with more of the same because this is the tool of his regime’s survival. Khamenei well knows that the instant he stops execution and suppression nothing will be left of his regime.

Navid Afkari’s execution has revived a new wave of revolt amongst the youths of Iran. Protest and uprising have found an opportunity to show itself.

The poor, the army of hungry people, and an army of mourning people hurt by this regime throughout the 41 years of its rule will find the appropriate moment. When that moment comes, none of all these suppressive plans, nor its IRGC or its security apparatus will be able to stop the flood of this army that will erase this regime from the face of Iran.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1. 

Many Iranian leaders see children as potential soldiers with the mental and physical readiness for war…

Iran has stepped up its operations to recruit young people to protect the Islamic Republic, many of them children, using some of the country’s most powerful resources, including sophisticated propaganda campaigns. 

Significant work to bring in young fighters is done by the Students’ Basij Force, and Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has praised young students willing to put themselves on the frontline, and the teachers who have encouraged them. He and other senior officials have publicly said that students should be regarded as a vital part of Iran’s able fighting force. 

But statistics reveal that more than half of the student population are of elementary-school-age and are actually less than 12 years old.

Speaking to a group of teachers, Khamenei said, “Over 36,000 of our students were martyred during the sacred defense [the Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988]. If it wasn’t for the warm spirit of the teachers, it would not have been possible for the students to go to the frontline in all circumstances. This honor belongs to teachers.”

Former minister of education Mohammed Battaei has stated that the student population should be seen as a reflection of the country’s military capacity. Nine months ago, he said: “We now have 14 million students who, despite all the cultural invasions we have had, will be at the ready and, if necessary, will sacrifice their lives, just like the sacred defense.”

After his comments were met with negative reactions from some, Battaei claimed he had been misunderstood. However, even if it could be argued that he made such statements out of a desire to please the leader and his allies, it is clear that many Iranian leaders see children as potential soldiers with the mental and physical readiness for war or for emergency situations.

The Students Basij, which is tasked with most of the recruitment of boy soldiers, is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and was formed in conjunction with a legal initiative for the “Development and Formation of Student Mobilization” set up seven years after the end of the war in 1997. The cabinet of Iran’s ninth legislature (2012-2016) passed and finalized its executive regulations 11 years later.

Article 7 of the executive regulations defines the duties of the Students’ Basij Units as follows:

— Recruiting and organizing volunteers for membership in the Students’ Basij;

— Conducting educational activities to build a spirit of cooperation, responsibility, and defense-preparedness, and to develop and strengthen the Basiji culture and ideology;

— Organization of camps, conferences, and special training drills for members in accordance with the guidelines adopted by the council;

— Assistance with school programs and after-school activities with the agreement or invitation of the school principals;

— Assistance in relief, aid, and construction activities;

— Participation in holy celebrations and extracurricular activities such as commemorating the Holy Defense Week [war commemoration] and the Students’ Basij Week;

— Carrying out necessary activities to strengthen the members’ scientific, cultural, and athletic skills.

Although most of these activities are of an educational and ideological nature, they are also regarded as an intrinsic part of a wider military strategy whereby children are trained to be mentally and physically able to contribute to war efforts. 

Article 8 of the regulations states that “military training is absolutely forbidden in schools,” but is quickly followed by the proviso that such training can be “carried out outside the school in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.”

Are the Guards Getting What They’re Paying For?

The Students’ Basij Corps is funded by the state at considerable cost, with its facilities and activities supported by the education ministry and the armed forces.

Furthermore, special and extraordinary privileges are provided to students who join the Basij, including a reduction in the time required to serve in mandatory military service and more opportunities to take part in university education, including benefitting from quota systems earmarked for Student Basij members. These incentives make joining the forces attractive for many young people. 

Currently the Islamic Republic makes huge investments toward transporting up to seven million students to pro-regime marches and sending them to Rahian-e Noor camps — tours to key battlefields from the Iran-Iraq War. It is difficult to calculate whether this output in benefits and training results in the military might and ideological commitment the regime is trying to secure, or what direction that investment will take in the future.

There have also been reports in recent years of the IRGC’s efforts to send non-Iranian children to the battlefields of the Syrian Civil War. In 2018, Human Rights Watch accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps of sending Afghan refugee children as soldiers to the Syrian war. The report said these Afghan children, sometimes as young as 14 years old, were deployed as part of the Fatemiyoun Brigade — which is comprised mostly of Afghan Shias who have often been told they will be given residency permits in exchange for “protecting Shia shrines” —  to fight alongside Iranian forces in Syria.

There is no evidence that Iranian children have been recruited to fight in Syria, but during domestic unrest, some younger Basij forces armed with light military equipment have appeared on the streets of various cities — a worrying phenomenon. In addition to the obvious dangers these children are being subjected to because they are being put into war zones, the long-term impact of these experiences pose a significant risk to their mental health, and jeopardize their ability to re-integrate into society, particularly those who experience military life before they have even reached puberty. But, as with older students, children can easily be seduced into military recruiting centers by a range of misleading promises.

For years, the IRGC has been “investing” in children. There are no official statistics regarding the number of Students’ Basij bases or the number of members who are underage. But journalists and activists have presented various pieces of evidence that outline the extent of the activities of the Basij organization. In one recent example, in November 2019, an army official in Khuzestan reported that there were 3,700 active Basij resistance bases in the province. At the same time, official statistics put the total number of secondary schools in Khuzestan province at less than 3000 schools. It would appear that, at least in some places in Iran, it is easier for children between 12 and 18 to join a Basij unit than it is to access their right to education.

Article first published on Iran Wire.