Iran Guards recruiting children as young as 12, putting them on front lines of war

Iran is ramping up the recruitment of children as young as the age of 12 into military-linked roles tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to new reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.The reports underscore mounting pressure inside Iran’s war effort. As U.S. and Israeli strikes intensify, rights groups and analysts say recruiting children points to manpower shortages and a growing reliance on paramilitary forces to hold the home front. It also escalates the human cost of the conflict, placing minors in direct danger while exposing Iran to potential war crimes liability. Human Rights Watch said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched a campaign called “Homeland Defending Combatants for Iran,” lowering the minimum recruitment age to 12 and encouraging minors to sign up in mosques and through Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The roles go beyond support tasks and include “operational patrols,” staffing checkpoints and intelligence activities, putting children directly in harm’s way as fighting intensifies across the country.IRAN ARRESTS 97 PEOPLE IT ACCUSES OF BEING ‘SOLDIERS OF ISRAEL’ IN MASSIVE CRACKDOWNAmnesty International said the recruitment and deployment of children under 15 “constitutes a war crime,” and backed its findings with verified visual evidence and eyewitness accounts.The organization analyzed 16 photos and videos published since Saturday, showing children carrying weapons, including AK-pattern rifles, and deployed alongside Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces at checkpoints, on patrols and during state-organized rallies in Iranian cities including Tehran, Mashhad and Kermanshah.Amnesty also documented…

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