“Central command of martyrdom lovers is to prepare one division from every province among the martyrdom seekers to receive specialized training, making them ready against the enemies of Islam and the sacred regime of the Islamic republic,” the advertisement in Parto Shokhan (Light of speech) read.
Parto Shokhan is published by an institute run by one of Islamic republic’s most ultra-conservative ideologues, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi.
The advertisement, decorated with pictures of Iranians soldiers, who conducted such operations against Iraq during their eight years of war, begins with a quote from Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: “Martyrdom seeking operations are the zenith of greatness of a nation and also zenith of its epic.”
All the would-be volunteers have to do is send their photo, the accompanying form and a copy of a birth certificate, to a post office box with no address.
The advertisement was published on the same day Iran’s new hardline President Mahmood Ahmadinejad, who benefited from ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi’s support during his campaign, took office.
According to the institute’s website, operating from Iran’s clerical capital, Qom, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi was appointed as the head of the institute by Khamenei.
The institute is a kind of a seminary school which not only persues Islamic researches, but also sends students abroad and teaches Islamic teachings to Iran’s volunteer militia, the Basij.
It is not the first time hardline Iranians have called upon volunteers to register for suicide missions.
However, the Iranian foreign ministry has repeatedly denied that these people and their actions are officially supported by the regime.
A few months ago, a ceremony was held by a group calling themselves “Esteshhadion” (martyrdom seekers) to honor the Palestinian women suicide bombers.
A billboard size photo of the women has been posted on a tall building in a busy intersection in central Tehran.
“I love my son, but I love martyrdom more,” the main sentence on the mural reads, underneath a picture of one of the women carrying her son in one arm and a machine gun in the other.
