Security
Iranian militias brainwash and recruit children in Damascus, Deir Ezzor
As part of the Iranian regime's efforts to ensure loyalists for generations, the IRGC is targeting children in countries and regions in which Iran-backed militias operate.
![Syrian families during a gathering at the Iranian Cultural Center in Deir Ezzor in 2021. [Syria TV]](/gc1/images/2024/05/04/46533-deir-ezzor-600_384.webp)
By Samah Abdul Fattah |
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is spreading the regime's idea of Wilayat al-Faqih in part by targeting children in countries where the IRGC and its allied militias are deployed, say activists and observers.
Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) is a Shia theological proposition that justifies Iran's dictatorial system of rule and export of "revolution" across the region.
The IRGC is currently focusing the spread of the idea in the areas of Iranian presence in Syria, especially Damascus, its suburbs and the regions of Deir Ezzor and the Badiya (eastern desert).
A primary aim of this teaching is to consolidate the IRGC's presence and maintain it for as long as possible, activists told Al-Fassel.
![One of the sports activities sponsored by the Iranian Cultural Center in Deir Ezzor in March 2023. [Euphrates Post]](/gc1/images/2024/05/04/46534-deir-ezzor2-600_384.webp)
"The IRGC opened a large number of cultural centers in Deir Ezzor province that are actually centers for preparing large groups that owe complete loyalty to the IRGC and al-Wali al-Faqih [Iranian leader Ali Khamenei], whereby children are recruited and indoctrinated on religious subjects in addition to the Persian language," media activist Ayham al-Ali told Al-Fassel.
"More accurately, they are totally brainwashed with Iranian ideas, similar to what the terrorist group ISIS did to ensure the creation of generations that owe it complete loyalty," he added.
Al-Ali said two centers were recently opened in the town of Hatla and the city of al-Mayadeen, and they were "exploiting the poverty of residents and luring them with financial aid and food baskets."
These centers are usually under direct Iranian supervision, he said, and sometimes under the supervision of members of the Lebanese Hizbullah group.
He added that the greatest attention is directed at the children of deceased elements of pro-Iran militias in the 9-13 age group.
Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iranian leaflets, books and newspapers were distributed about Wilayat al-Faqih, "and since then the focus was directed at children through scout-related, recreational and educational activities," Iranian affairs researcher Fathi al-Sayed of the al-Sharq Center for Regional and Strategic Studies told Al-Fassel.
Cultural centers "not only disseminate sectarian ideas but also ensure that the IRGC will have successive generations loyal to it."
Al-Sayed said this is happening in "Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen, in addition to the presence of large numbers of armed elements, one of the most dangerous tools used by the IRGC to threaten the security of the region."
Any way to rid them of ISIS and (Islamist) slaughter is acceptable to them and there is no escape from it.
Their conference was in 2021 and ISIS training camps in Latakia in 2008, and the slaughter began in 2010. May the curse of God be upon the slaughtering oppressors.
The ideology of the Guardianship of the Jurist [in reference to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei] - which has saved them from ISIS that was supported by the Arab rulers and the Wahhabis, who took their women captive and killed their men - is more honorable than yours. You and your poisonous media are a danger to Muslims and Arabs and to the future of our children in Islamic countries.