Anti-American mural on wall of former U.S. em****y in Tehran depicts Statue of Liberty with face of skeleton


A terrorist group is distributing flyers in Iran calling for young volunteers to join the Lebanese Hezbollah to carry out suicide operations against the "Global Arrogance" – also known as the United States.

The leaflets promise young recruits that they will join "fighters in the worldwide front against the Global Arrogance," the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, reported. The term is used by some Iranian officials in reference to the U.S.

On Nov. 1, Tabnak, an Iranian news website identified with Expediency Discernment Council Secretary and former Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezai, announced a group has been actively recruiting members in Tehran and large Iranian provinces for Lebanon's Hezbollah. The flyers are labeled "Registration for Membership in the Lebanese Hezbollah " and "Registration for Martyrdom Operations." Each form requires addresses and additional information so recruits may be contacted for the cause.

Tabnak reports a Tehran phone number and address is located on the registration forms. However, the website reported "validity [of the address] could not be confirmed." Martyrdom registration forms reportedly include the name of an organization known to be active in the region, though Tabnak does not reveal its name.

MEMRI translated the news report. A portion of it reads:

"It should be mentioned that this group – some of whose previous activities and [projects] were not without merit – has in the past recruited martyrdom squads [for operations in] Palestine, which generated a wave of [anti-Iranian] propaganda worldwide and branded Iran a terrorist [state]. [The same group] also produced a recent documentary on [the assassination of former Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat which aroused considerable protest in Egypt and prompted the creation of an anti-Islamic and anti-Iran film that insults the great leader of the [Islamic] Revolution [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]."

Tabnak also reported, "[A]n Iranian movement called the World Islamic Organization Headquarters for Remembering the Shahids has carried out several recruitment campaigns for volunteers for martyrdom operations in Iraq and Israel, and has produced a film titled 'Assassination of a Pharaoh,' on the assassination of Sadat."

"The Iranian regime has tried to present the martyrdom movement as a voluntary enterprise independent of the state," MEMRI reported in May. "However, the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) representatives at the movement's registration ceremonies suggests that it is endorsed by the regime."

In July 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly endorsed suicide missions, asking, "Is there an art more beautiful, more divine, and more eternal than the art of martyrdom?"

The latest suicide recruitment campaign comes just before Iran's annual celebration of its "National Day Against Global Arrogance" on Nov. 4. Among other events, it marks the 29th anniversary of the day militant Islamists stormed the U.S. em****y in Tehran and took more than 90 people hostage for 444 days, most of whom were American. Every year, many Iranians celebrate near the site they have decorated with anti-American slogans and dubbed the "Den of Spies."



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