Iran's Janfada Campaign Holds First Tehran Military Exercise — SkimNews
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- Iran's Janfada campaign held its first public "military exercise" in central Tehran on Friday, with authorities claiming 313,000 marched — a figure tied to the number of companions of the hidden imam in Twelver Shia tradition — though state TV footage did not appear to justify the claim.
- IRGC Tehran commander Hassan Hassanzadeh said 600,000 registered this week alone and 33 million total since the late-March launch; foreign-based activists who accessed the website's source code found fewer than 4 million had actually registered, and no national ID was required for sign-up.
- Campaign spokesman Sasan Zare confirmed boys over 15 can register with plans to extend recruitment to under-15s, telling ILNA the goal is to instill "the culture of sacrifice and resistance" — with armed teenagers already manning checkpoints and roadblocks across Iranian cities in recent months.
- Only 26% of registrants selected military or security roles; other categories include rescue, social services, media, and financial support, while President Masoud Pezeshkian asked volunteers to conserve fuel and electricity amid ongoing blackouts and gas shortages.
- Arab Gulf States Institute senior fellow Ali Alfoneh characterised the campaign as an effort to rebrand the Basij militia, which he said evolved into "an instrument of domestic coercion" after the 1988 Iran-Iraq war, damaging its patriotic image.
- Security chief Mohsen Rezaei told Al Jazeera that seven conditions for negotiations have been relayed to Washington via intermediaries, but said commanders are prepared to resume war as Iran and the US remain deadlocked over the Strait of Hormuz and a US naval blockade continues.
- The mobilisation drive comes months after thousands were killed in January protests Iran calls a US- and Israel-orchestrated "coup"; a UN fact-finding mission alleged on Friday that the Islamic Republic committed crimes against humanity during the crackdown.
Why it matters: Analysts read the Janfada campaign as a regime effort to rehabilitate the Basij's image after its role in crushing dissent — including January's deadly crackdown that the UN says is genocide-grade — even as Iran remains under US naval blockade and Pezeshkian is publicly begging civilians to conserve fuel. Mobilising teenagers and inflating registration figures by roughly 8x suggests a leadership more focused on internal ideological control and signaling resolve than on any realistic ground-war scenario.
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