 A group of hardline Iranian students left for Lebanon on Wednesday pledging to help Hizbollah fight Israeli forces there, witnesses said.
Iranian hardliners have made great public show of recruiting volunteers for "martyrdom-seeking operations" in recent years, but there is no record of any of these Iranian volunteers taking part in attacks in Iraq, or against Israel. "The Prophet Mohammad's army is on its way to fight against the Zionists," chanted some 50 volunteers at Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, where a large tree-lined area is dedicated to Iran's "martyrs" killed in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. "A group of 200 volunteer students will be dispatched to Lebanon via Turkey. We are leaving Tehran today by bus," Amir Jalili, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters.
| "200 tickets to Beirut, please. One way only." |
"We hope Turkey will let us pass the border and go to Syria. If not we will come back to Tehran."
| I hope Turkey lets you pass and the Israelis kill half of you and maim the other half for life. |
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