The Iranian regime is recruiting children and sending out mass recruitment messages via text, signaling there may be truth to the White House’s claim that the Islamic regime is suffering widespread desertions.
Amnesty International published a report on Thursday claiming Tehran is “recruiting and mobilizing children as young as 12” to participate in efforts supporting the war. Human Rights Watch similarly lamented this week that the beleaguered regime is “apparently willing to risk children’s lives for some extra manpower.”
“The regime has a long record of exploiting minors in times of crisis, including sending them by the tens of thousands to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq War,” Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the U.S. Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told the Washington Examiner. “Today, reports of minors being used as part of the repressive apparatus follow the same logic.”
The child soldiers are reportedly being pushed into roles that include “patrols, checkpoint duties, logistical support, distribution of equipment and supplies, and assisting with food, medical and relief tasks.”
Meanwhile, Iran has launched a nationwide campaign recruiting volunteers to serve in military positions to oppose “threats of the American-Zionist enemy against the islands and borders of Iran.”
The national “Janfada” campaign — which translates to “Sacrificing Life” — was announced via a mass text blast to Iranian citizens.
Jafarzadeh said that the campaign is pitched as a patriotic duty, and the mobilization of civilians helps the regime by both replenishing manpower and occupying members of the public that could otherwise be swept up into future protests.
“While the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] portrays this as patriotic volunteerism and deep ‘social strength,’ the reality is different: executions, expanded street controls, and rushed recruitment all point to a system under strain—masking vulnerability against its own population as mobilization,” he claimed.
Brian Carter, research manager at the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, affirmed to the Washington Examiner that such the volunteer and child recruitment campaings seem to indicate that “Iran is facing issues with desertion and personnel refusing orders, but it is unclear from open sources how large of an issue this is.”
It is unlikely that the military would be able to provide any volunteers with meaningful training for their roles with the remaining defense infrastructure stretched to its limits by the conflict.
“Assigning these new, possibly relatively untrained recruits to man checkpoints in particular suggests that some of the individuals previously manning checkpoints abandoned their posts after the Israelis began striking checkpoints,” Carter explained.
This would jibe with the U.S. administration’s claims that Operation Epic Fury is degrading the Guards not only materially, but mentally.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday at a Pentagon press conference that ongoing strikes are “damaging the morale of the Iranian military, leading to widespread desertions, key personnel shortages and causing frustrations amongst senior leaders.”
Whatever problems the Iranian military is facing internally, it continues to project confidence and disinterest in compromise through its public statements.
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Ali Akbar Ahmadian, who represents Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on the national Defense Council, called ongoing U.S. military operations “empty shows” and “Hollywood-style theatrics” in a Friday statement.
He added: “This region is our playing field, and responses are based on rational and realistic calculations.”
Ahmadian released the statement the same day that an American war plane was shot down over Iran, with rescue operations still underway for one serviceman.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that his administration is in communication with “new” regime leadership in Iran, but has provided no details on the identities of those allegedly negotiating on the nation’s behalf.
