Iran executes protest detainee over Basij base fire case

Jafari, a fifth-grade student, was killed at a military checkpoint in Tehran during US and Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, according to Hengaw, a Norway-based Kurdish human rights organization that monitors abuses in Iran.

In an interview with the state-affiliated Hamshahri newspaper, the boy’s mother said that because of a “shortage of personnel,” his father had taken him to the checkpoint. He was later killed in a drone strike while stationed there.

The Basij Organization confirmed that the 11-year-old died “while on duty” at a checkpoint on Artesh Highway as a result of the strike.

Why he was sent remains difficult to verify. In Iran’s tightly controlled information environment, families often speak under pressure, with state scrutiny and the threat of reprisals limiting candor.

The case comes as officials with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have openly acknowledged lowering the minimum age for war-related support roles to 12.

Rahim Nadali, a cultural official with the Guards in Tehran, said in remarks aired on state media that an initiative called For Iran was recruiting participants for patrols, checkpoints and logistics.

“Given that the age of those coming forward has dropped and they are asking to take part, we lowered the minimum age to 12,” he said, adding that 12- and 13-year-olds could now take part if they wished.

The state-backed recruitment drive makes Jafari’s death more than an isolated case. Together with precedent from the Iran-Iraq war, it suggests children even younger than the officially stated minimum may also be drawn into the war effort.

For rights advocates, the case reveals both a propaganda strategy and a manpower crisis inside a weakened state.

“They want to recruit these young people, use them as a kind of human shield. Because if they attack these kids, they start saying, ‘Oh look, they attack kids,’ and that’s what they’re doing,” said Shiva Mahbobi, a former political prisoner and London-based human rights advocate.

The child was placed at a military checkpoint even as the regime knew such sites were active targets of Israeli strikes, underscoring the degree to which minors were knowingly exposed to lethal risk.

Analysts say the reliance on minors also points to deeper strain within the regime’s security structure. After months of domestic unrest, wartime losses and reported cracks within some IRGC ranks, including defections, the state appears increasingly short on trusted personnel for checkpoint and support roles.

“They have actually called upon younger people to come and tried to recruit them. It shows they are preparing for a battle where they know they will need many more forces,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization told Iran International.

“It also shows they are not in a good condition. They are struggling for their survival.”

“They have only one principle, which is holy to them, and that’s to preserve the establishment," he added.

Through his human rights organization, Amiry-Moghaddam has documented cases from the January crackdown in which the regime placed weapons in the hands of minors and sent them to fire on protesters, exploiting the hesitation many civilians feel when confronted by a child.

A holy pledge: preserve the regime

The use of children in conflict, rights groups say, is not new. It reflects a longer doctrine in which vulnerable lives are used to offset military weakness and preserve the state.

“The Islamic Republic used a large number of child soldiers during the war with Iraq. They also sent Afghan children to fight in Syria,” said Shahin Milani, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

“Given the pressure they are under, it is not surprising that they have resorted to using minors to man checkpoints. Perhaps they want to keep their trained fighters for more critical roles. Since it came to power in 1979, the Islamic Republic has relied on sacrificing its soldiers to compensate for technological inferiority.”

That logic, rights defenders argue, crosses from military expediency into deliberate political calculation.

“Hiding behind children is not new. The Islamic Republic used children in the war with Iraq as well, brainwashing them with propaganda and giving them keys to heaven," said Roya Boroumand, co-founder and executive director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center.

The move comes despite Iran’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the use of children in military activities. Iran signed the treaty on September 5, 1991 and ratified it on July 13, 1994.

For Boroumand, the use of minors reflects a governing doctrine in which human life is subordinated to state survival.

“They are disposable and instruments for a higher purpose. In this case, the loss of children’s lives increases the political cost of war for their enemies. So rather than protecting and evacuating them to safe shelters, they deliberately expose them to danger,” she said.

So far, UNICEF has not publicly condemned the Islamic Republic’s stated policy of recruiting children into war-related support roles. Iran International has reached out to UNICEF’s communications team for comment.

What appears, at first glance, as a dynastic shift is in fact the continuation of an ideological and institutional project: the consolidation and reproduction of Khameneism.

The central argument is straightforward: Mojtaba Khamenei does not represent a new phase in the Islamic Republic. He represents the success of a long-term process of “rail-laying”—a deliberate restructuring of power that ensures continuity regardless of who formally occupies the position of Supreme Leader. In this sense, the system no longer depends on individual authority; it reproduces a predefined ideological and political logic.

This transformation was made possible by the way Ali Khamenei maximized the latent capacities of the Islamic Republic’s constitutional framework. The constitution already concentrates extraordinary power in the office of the Supreme Leader. However, Khamenei did not merely operate within these limits—he expanded and operationalized them. Over 37 years, he systematically turned flexible or ambiguous mechanisms into rigid and enforceable structures, embedding his ideological preferences into the institutional fabric of the state.

One of the clearest examples of this process is the evolution of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. This body, notably absent from the constitution, was gradually transformed under Khamenei into a central pillar of ideological control. What began as a mechanism for purging universities in the early years of the revolution became a highly structured institution with dozens of sub-councils, extending its reach across education, culture, media, and social policy. It evolved into a powerful instrument for shaping and policing societal norms—without ever requiring formal constitutional legitimacy. This is Khameneism in practice: the ability to formalize control without formal law.

A similar trajectory can be observed in the transformation of the Guardian Council. Originally conceived as a supervisory body overseeing legislation and elections, it was reengineered into a decisive mechanism for controlling political outcomes. Through expanded vetting powers and systematic disqualification of candidates, the council moved from oversight to orchestration. Over time, it became capable not only of influencing elections but effectively determining their results in advance. This shift—from supervision to engineering—was not incidental; it was a key step in institutionalizing Khameneism.

These developments were not isolated. They formed part of a broader strategy to eliminate unpredictability from the system. Independent political actors were sidelined, reformist currents neutralized, and institutional autonomy steadily eroded. What emerged was a tightly controlled ecosystem in which all meaningful levers of power—political, judicial, cultural, and economic—were aligned with a single ideological framework.

Within this context, the emergence of Mojtaba Khamenei as a central figure becomes comprehensible. His lack of traditional religious credentials or broad political legitimacy is not a contradiction—it is a consequence of the system’s evolution. Years of institutional engineering, including the careful management of the Assembly of Experts and the systematic removal of potential obstacles, made such a transition possible. The “selection” process itself reflects the culmination of Khamenei’s long-term restructuring: a system in which outcomes are preconfigured rather than contested.

More importantly, Mojtaba’s rise demonstrates that Khameneism has achieved a critical threshold—it can now sustain itself without its original architect. The ideology has been embedded so deeply within the system that any successor, regardless of personal inclination, is compelled to operate within its parameters. The structure dictates the outcome.

This is why the question of leadership succession is, in many ways, secondary. Whether it is Mojtaba Khamenei or another figure, the current institutional configuration leaves little room for deviation. The mechanisms of control, the networks of power, and the ideological priorities—particularly the emphasis on regime preservation, anti-Western positioning, and hostility toward Israel even at significant national cost—are all structurally entrenched.

Khameneism, therefore, is no longer simply an ideology associated with one leader. It is a system of governance—self-reinforcing, expansive, and resistant to change. The Islamic Republic has, through decades of deliberate restructuring, lost its capacity to generate alternative political paths from within.

In this sense, Mojtaba Khamenei is not the beginning of a new chapter. He is the continuation of a trajectory that has been decades in the making.

And perhaps more significantly, this continuity underscores a deeper reality: the Islamic Republic has reached a point where change from within has become structurally improbable. The very mechanisms designed to preserve the system have also eliminated its flexibility.

Khameneism, as both ideology and structure, may ultimately define not only how the system survives—but how it ends. It sustains the Islamic Republic by centralizing power, eliminating dissent, and enforcing ideological conformity across all institutions. Yet those same mechanisms steadily erode the foundations of long-term stability: public trust, institutional adaptability, and economic resilience. A system built to prevent deviation becomes incapable of reform; a state designed to suppress a crisis becomes dependent on perpetual coercion to manage it.

In this sense, Khameneism transforms survival into a self-consuming process. Each cycle of repression narrows the regime’s options further, raises the cost of governance, and deepens the gap between state and society. The tools that once ensured control—security dominance, ideological rigidity, and exclusion of alternative voices—gradually become liabilities, locking the system into a path where it can neither evolve nor retreat.

As a result, Khameneism may determine not only the durability of the Islamic Republic, but also the form of its eventual breakdown: not a sudden collapse, but an accumulated exhaustion. A system that endures by sacrificing its capacity to renew itself ultimately reaches a point where continuation itself becomes unsustainable.

The 33-page document shared with Iran International by the hacktivist group Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) has been marked “very confidential” and is titled Instruction for Identification, Maintenance, and Use of Positions.

The document is attributed to the Specialized Documents Center of the Intelligence and Operations Deputy of the IRGC's missile command.

A framework for missile operations

What emerges from the directive is a bureaucratic framework for missile deployment that goes well beyond hardened silos or underground “missile cities.”

The text lays out categories of launch positions, inspection procedures, coding systems, site records, chains of responsibility and rules for maintaining access to a wide network of locations that can be used before, during and after missile fire.

Its significance lies not only in the variety of launch positions it defines, but in the explicit inclusion of non-military environments in that system.

In its introduction, the document says missile positions are an inseparable part of missile warfare tactics and argues that the enemy’s growing ability to detect, track and destroy missile systems requires special rules for identifying, selecting, using and maintaining such positions.

It adds that the use of “deception,” “cover” and “normalization” alongside other methods would make the force more successful in using those positions.

That language is important. It suggests the document is not merely about protecting fixed military assets. It is about making missile units harder to distinguish from their surroundings and harder to detect in the first place.

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  Iran’s military uses schools and civilian sites during US-Israeli war

Civilian locations as missile cover

The implication of the directive is that it describes a system for embedding missile activity within ordinary civilian geography.

Rather than relying only on conventional military facilities, the document sets out a model in which missile units can move across a wider landscape of pre-identified sites selected for concealment, access and operational utility.

The result is a structure that appears designed to preserve launch capability while reducing visibility and complicating detection.

The clearest indication comes in the section on what the document describes as artificial dispersion or cover positions. These include service, industrial and sports centers, as well as sheds and warehouses – places that are civilian in function or appearance, but can be repurposed to hide missile units.

The conditions listed for such sites include being enclosed, not overlooked by surrounding buildings, and either lacking CCTV cameras or allowing them to be switched off.

Taken together, those requirements point to a deliberate screening process for civilian sites that can be used as missile cover. The concern is not only protection from attack, but invisibility within the civilian landscape.

The broader structure of the document reinforces that conclusion. It contains sections on site identities, naming and coding, inspections of routes and positions, record maintenance and responsibilities across intelligence, operations, engineering, communications, safety, health and counterintelligence.

This is the language of a standing system, not an improvised wartime workaround.

A system for concealment

Farzin Nadimi, a senior defense and security analyst at the Washington Institute who reviewed the document for Iran International’s The Lead with Niusha Saremi, said the text points to a database-driven effort to identify areas around missile bases that can be used for different kinds of positions.

He said the IRGC missile force appears to have mapped not only launch positions, but also dispersal, deception and technical positions – the latter being places suitable for storing launchers and support vehicles and, when needed, preparing missiles for firing.

“These technical positions,” Nadimi said, “can include large, covered spaces such as industrial sheds or sports halls, where missile launchers and support vehicles can be brought inside, and where missiles can be mounted onto launchers, warheads attached and, in the case of liquid-fueled systems, fueling operations carried out.”

That point is critical. If civilian-looking or civilian-owned structures are being used not only to shelter launchers, but also to prepare them for launch, then the document describes more than concealment. It describes the embedding of missile operations inside civilian infrastructure.

A network built for dispersal

Nadimi also said the directive places repeated emphasis on speed – getting launch vehicles into these buildings quickly before launch and returning them to cover quickly afterward.

In his reading, the database tied to these positions includes technical features of each site, access routes and nearby facilities, including the nearest medical center, police station and military post.

It also, he added, records whether use of the property can be coordinated in advance with the owner, including contact details, or whether occupation could occur without prior coordination in urgent cases.

If so, that would suggest the system extends down to the level of property access and local civilian surroundings, turning seemingly ordinary sites into preplanned nodes in a missile network.

The document’s own emphasis on route inspection, site profiles, records and coded classification supports the picture of a missile force operating through a dispersed support architecture rather than through fixed bases alone.

Why this puts civilians at risk

Nadimi warned that the use of civilian environments is especially troubling because many IRGC launchers are themselves designed to blend into civilian traffic.

“Many of these launchers essentially resemble civilian vehicles or trailers,” he said.

He added that larger launchers for Khorramshahr missiles can be covered with a white casing that makes them look like an ordinary white civilian trailer, while the towing vehicle is also typically white.

Smaller launchers, he said, are often painted not in conventional camouflage but in ways that make them less conspicuous in civilian surroundings.

That observation fits closely with the document’s emphasis on cover, concealment and post-launch disappearance. The combination of disguised launch vehicles and preidentified civilian sites suggests an operational doctrine built around blending missile units into non-military space.

According to Nadimi, this has direct consequences under the laws of war.

“The use of civilian environments, structures and buildings for this purpose is unlawful under the laws of war,” he said. “It removes the protection those buildings would otherwise have and turns them into legitimate military targets.”

The danger, he added, is that civilians living or working in such places may have no idea a missile launcher is being hidden in their vicinity until they themselves are exposed to attack.

An organized doctrine, not an exception

The leaked directive therefore appears to document something broader than the existence of underground missile facilities or dispersed launch sites.

It points to an organized method for extending missile operations into the civilian sphere – using industrial buildings, service facilities, sports complexes, warehouses and other non-military spaces as part of a launch architecture designed to survive surveillance, evade detection and preserve firing capability under wartime pressure.

In that sense, the document is not just about positions where missiles are launched from. It is about how a military force can fold launch operations into everyday civilian geography – and in doing so, transfer the risks of missile warfare onto places and people that outwardly have nothing to do with it.

Ali Rezaei Majd still looks toward the rugged peaks of the Zagros Mountains — just beyond them now, across the border in Iraqi territory.

More than six feet tall, with a muscular build, tattoos etched across his body, and long, thick, curly hair, Majd is a presence that’s hard to ignore.

He looks like a fighter. The truth is — he is one.

A proud Lor from Iran’s tribal province of Lorestan, Majd comes from a people known for their deep connection to their land — and for their resilience. The Lors are an Iranian ethnic group rooted in the Zagros region, with a long history shaped by life in the mountains and a culture that values strength, independence and loyalty.

His life has been on the run since early January, when he posted a video from his hometown that would soon be seen around the world.

In it, holding up his Iranian ID, he made a direct plea to then-President Donald Trump and the American people:

“I’m speaking to you from inside Iran… not as a politician, not as a soldier, but as a human being living under fear and oppression every single day… Please don’t forget us.”

The video struck a nerve — garnering over nine million views on Instagram. The English version was also viewed nearly two million times.

But it also made him a target.

Majd says the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began searching for him. With operatives closing in, he fled — crossing mountainous terrain with the help of Kurdish people.

“I was in a prison for 30 years. Iran was like a prison for me,” he told the Eye for Iran podcast.

“When you grow up in a prison, you risk everything for freedom — even for one day.”

Today, his safety remains uncertain, with threats from a regime never far behind.

Now in exile, he is speaking out — with one message above all:

“We cannot make a deal with them. Dealing with them means letting this cancer continue.”

Majd says many of his friends were killed when the regime unleashed force — including heavily armed units — against what he describes as a largely defenseless population.

“When you come to the streets in Iran, you’re going to die,” he said. “They don’t shoot to stop you — they shoot to kill.”

He also has a message for the West — and for the media.

Watching coverage from abroad, Majd says he is frustrated by calls to halt military operations, arguing they misunderstand the reality inside Iran.

“I see many channels trying to stop this operation… saying this is the wrong way,” he said. “But this regime is a threat to the whole world.”

For him, this moment represents something else — a rare opportunity.

“This is the best chance to stop this regime,” he said. “If you don’t stop them, they will become more dangerous.”

He considers himself lucky to be alive.

And now, he says, it is his responsibility to carry the voices of those who can no longer speak.

“The best of us — the bravest — they are gone. So I have to speak for them.”

Majd described the violence he witnessed in chilling terms: “It was like a video game. They were just shooting people — so easily.”

Despite the danger and despite what he says are ongoing threats from regime operatives — Majd continues to speak publicly.

Because for him — and for those who can no longer speak — silence is not an option.

The sites span 17 provinces, 28 cities and two villages. Nearly half of them – 34 in total – were primary or secondary schools. Other locations identified in eyewitness accounts and documents reviewed by Iran International included hospitals, stadiums, universities, mosques, parks and government offices.

The accounts were gathered over a 13-day period from March 2 to March 14, 2026, during a near-total internet shutdown that sharply restricted the flow of messages, photos and video from inside Iran.

While Iran International could not independently verify every account, it geolocated visual evidence from seven reported sites, all of them schools.

Civilian sites and battlefield risk

The deployment of military forces at civilian sites “shifts battlefield risks onto civilians,” a regional security source who requested anonymity said, adding that using such locations for military purposes is prohibited under international law.

“When security or paramilitary forces move into schools, hospitals or mosques, they endanger civilians physically, degrade protected civilian services and may turn those sites into military objectives,” the source said.

Under international humanitarian law, civilian sites can lose protected status if used for military purposes, though attacking forces must still comply with rules on distinction, proportionality and precaution.

The source said the legal implications vary depending on the type of site but warned that such practices can strip civilian locations of their protected status.

“Schools are civilian objects; using them as barracks, firing positions, detention sites, or weapons depots can make them lawful military targets, while still leaving the attacker bound by distinction, proportionality, and feasible precautions,” the source said, adding that this “amounts to human shielding.”

At least four hospitals were identified in eyewitness accounts as having nearby or associated military deployments, including Golestan Hospital in Ahvaz and medical sites in Kermanshah and other western regions.

“Hospitals get even stronger protection than schools. Under International Humanitarian Law, they must be respected and protected, but if they are used outside their humanitarian role, such as for a base, observation post, military center, shelter for military-security personnel, or weapons depot, they lose that special protection, although a clear warning is required before any attack,” the source said.

At least three mosques were identified in eyewitness accounts as having been used for military deployments. In the capital, Tehran, this included Rezvan Mosque on March 8 and Chahardeh Masoum Mosque in University Town on March 7, where special police units were stationed.

Malek Ashtar Mosque in Khosrowshah in East Azarbaijan province was also used on March 9, where IRGC forces were relocated.

Mosques are protected as civilian objects and may also qualify as cultural property under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, the source said.

“Using mosques for military purposes is prohibited, but if turned into a military objective, they lose protection, while attacking forces must still take precautions and avoid indiscriminate or disproportionate action,” the source added.

How the reporting was assembled

As authorities imposed a near-total internet shutdown across the country after the outbreak of the war, only a limited number of messages were able to get through filtering systems, while photo and video footage remained scarce.

Iran International collected eyewitness accounts from March 2 to March 14 but could not independently verify every claim.

It was nevertheless able to geolocate visual evidence accompanying some of the reports, identifying seven locations, all of them schools.

A pattern across multiple provinces

The accounts reviewed by Iran International illustrate the breadth of the reported deployments across multiple provinces.

In Tehran and surrounding areas in north-central Iran, eyewitness reports said police, intelligence and administrative offices in Malard were relocated on March 8 to Fatemiyeh Girls’ High School, which is located alongside two other schools near a gas station.

One of the main hubs for Iran’s plainclothes security forces in Tehran is the Basij’s Meghdad Resistance District, known as the “Meghdad base.” It is located on Azadi Street, next to Sharif University of Technology.

During the June 15, 2009 protests – part of the mass demonstrations that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election and became known as the Green Movement – gunfire using live ammunition was directed at demonstrators from the base’s rooftop.

The Meghdad base sits next to the central headquarters of the West Tehran Combatants Council, a complex with significant influence across paramilitary and security structures. The surrounding area was targeted in strikes on March 6.

After the strikes, eyewitness accounts on March 8 said remaining personnel and equipment had been moved to a fire department building directly opposite the former Meghdad base.

Another eyewitness account on March 9 said forces and equipment were relocated again, this time to a Bank Mellat complex on Azadi Street near the start of Jeyhoon Street. The site is one of the bank’s key national facilities and houses its data center.

Beyond the capital, similar deployments were reported across multiple regions of the country.

In Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran, eyewitness accounts said military forces were stationed at Takhti stadiums in Izeh and Ahvaz, as well as at Chamran University and near Golestan Hospital in Ahvaz, and at a girls’ primary school in Dezful.

In Fars province in southern Iran, military forces were reported at Sardaran Stadium and near the Negin commercial complex in Shiraz, as well as at schools in rural areas.

In Kermanshah in western Iran, missile launchers and military forces were deployed near major hospitals and at an industrial factory. In East Azarbaijan in northwestern Iran, forces were reported at multiple schools in Tabriz and in Hadishahr.

In Isfahan province in central Iran, forces were stationed at women’s parks, sports facilities and schools in several cities, including Isfahan, Dastgerd and Naein. In Alborz province west of Tehran, deployments were reported across Karaj, Hashtgerd and Mehrshahr.

In Razavi Khorasan in northeastern Iran, forces were reported to have used schools in Mashhad as bases, while in Bushehr in southern Iran they were stationed at universities.

In West Azarbaijan in northwestern Iran, forces were reported at a school in Khoy, while 22 Bahman Stadium in Qazvin in north-central Iran served as a main base.

In Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province in southwestern Iran, military forces used Naft Stadium in Gachsaran. In Markazi province in central Iran, deployments were reported at a school and a government office in Arak. In Mazandaran in northern Iran, schools in Tonekabon were used as bases.

In Golestan in northern Iran, military forces were reported at a school and a government building in Gorgan, while in Lorestan in western Iran, deployments were reported at several high schools in Borujerd.

US warning and Israeli response

Iranian officials have repeatedly denied accusations that the country uses civilians as shields and have accused Israel of targeting civilian infrastructure during the conflict.

The Israeli military, when contacted for comment, confirmed that Iranian forces were deploying personnel and weapons at civilian sites such as schools, mosques and stadiums.

“Iran’s regime, like all of its proxy and terrorist groups across the Middle East that are activated and employed by this regime, has effectively turned defenseless people into its human shields and hides behind these innocent, unfortunate civilian populations,” Israel Defense Forces Persian-speaking spokesman Kamal Penhasi told Iran International.

“It tries to conceal its military assets and weapons behind people and among the population, including in hospitals, schools, and mosques,” he added.

Asked how civilian harm is minimized in populated areas, Penhasi said evacuation warnings are issued ahead of operations and precision-guided weapons are used to limit collateral damage.

“We do everything within our power to the extent possible to prevent harm to civilians and the citizens of the dear Iranian nation.”

Penhasi urged people to distance themselves from such locations and follow evacuation warnings.

“I ask the people of Iran to pay attention to our messages to protect their lives and safety. As soon as they receive a warning message, they should move away and also pass it on to their neighbors, friends, and relatives,” he said.

Iran International also reached out to the US Central Command, the White House and the Pentagon for comment, but they did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

US Central Command on March 8 issued a safety warning to civilians in Iran, saying civilian locations used for military purposes could become legitimate military targets under international law.

“The Iranian regime is using heavily populated civilian areas to conduct military operations, including launching one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

“This dangerous decision risks the lives of all civilians in Iran since locations used for military purposes lose protected status and could become legitimate military targets under international law,” the statement added.