Across Tehran, banners carrying images of rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles, assault weapons and communications equipment pose a blunt question: “Do you know how to work with this?” The message forms part of a major Iranian mobilisation campaign aimed at training and arming volunteer civilians who would serve within state security structures under the Basij militia arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Known as Janfada, or “those who sacrifice their life”, the campaign was first unveiled in late March, at the height of the war with the United States and Israel. Months later, it has moved beyond recruitment messaging into public displays of organised mobilisation. On Friday, recruits took part in their first public “military exercise” in Tehran, where thousands of children, women and men, many masked and wearing shades, marched through the city centre.
The scale of the mobilisation remains contested. Before the event, authorities described it as a march involving 313,000 people. Yet footage broadcast by state television did not appear to justify that figure. The number itself carries a particular significance in Twelver Shia tradition: 313 is regarded as the number of the core companions of Mahdi, the messianic hidden imam who will reappear near the end times to establish justice.
Hassan Hassanzadeh, head of the IRGC in Tehran, told state broadcaster IRIB that more than 600,000 people had responded to the campaign this week by registering for its active mobilisation component. Authorities said more than one million people were expected eventually to sign up and that an initial 1,000 units, described as “battalions”, had already been formed.
Those figures follow an earlier controversy over the campaign. In late March, authorities claimed that more than 31 million people had registered, a figure representing just over a third of Iran’s total population and more than half of its population over the age of 12. Foreign-based activists who accessed the website’s source code said the actual number of registrations was fewer than four million. Registration required only a telephone number, rather than a national identification number.
After the controversy, the public ticker displaying the number of recruits slowed considerably. Yet on Friday, Hassanzadeh claimed that 33 million people were now registered. Authorities have not released documentation to substantiate those figures.
The campaign is not formally restricted to military duties. Organisers said 26 percent of registrants selected military and security work, while other categories include rescue, social services, media and financial support. The breadth of those roles reflects the way the mobilisation effort has been presented as a wider national response rather than solely as a programme for preparing civilians for combat.
President Masoud Pezeshkian used Friday’s parade to ask volunteers to support his administration in another way: by consuming less fuel, electricity and other resources. Iran is facing an energy imbalance and wider economic turmoil. Earlier this month, the government increased fuel prices and restricted petrol quotas for personal vehicles as it confronted a budget crunch and fuel production shortfalls linked to the war.
Households and industries have also faced intermittent power blackouts throughout the summer, while the coming cold season is expected to bring further natural gas shortages, despite Iran’s position as a resource-rich country. Against this backdrop, Janfada has become both a mobilisation campaign and a public appeal for citizens to contribute to the state’s response to mounting pressures.
Perhaps the most striking element of the latest mobilisation has been its focus on children and teenagers. Some teenagers were shown carrying assault rifles and other weapons during Friday’s exercise, while others marched in the procession. Armed teenagers have also been seen manning checkpoints and roadblocks in Tehran and other cities in recent months.
Sasan Zare, spokesman for the Janfada campaign, told the state-linked Iranian Labour News Agency on Saturday that boys over 15 had been permitted to register, while plans were also being considered to recruit those under 15. “Our effort concerning children and teenagers, first and foremost, is to introduce them to the culture of sacrifice and resistance,” Zare said.
“The stronger their value system is formed from childhood, and the more they become familiar with concepts like patriotism and self-sacrifice, the more significant the impact can be on their future.”
Women were also prominent in Friday’s display. Many chador-clad volunteers carried weapons in the streets, while some were shown riding motorcycles, despite women being officially banned from doing so in civilian life. Alongside them, military hardware used during the war with the US and Israel was displayed publicly, reinforcing the campaign’s connection to the wider conflict.
The timing is significant. Iran and the United States remain locked in disputes over the future of the Strait of Hormuz and the outcome of the war. The US continues to impose a naval blockade on Iran’s southern ports and has intensified sanctions. Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, told Al Jazeera that seven conditions for negotiations had been conveyed to Washington through intermediaries, while commanders remained prepared to resume the war.
Yet Iranian authorities have not explained why hundreds of thousands of civilians would need to take up arms or participate in security activities when there are no prospects of a US ground war in the foreseeable future.
The campaign also comes after nationwide protests in January, during which thousands were killed. Iranian authorities have described those protests as a “coup” orchestrated by the US and Israel and by armed agents acting in accordance with their interests. A United Nations fact-finding mission alleged on Friday that the Islamic Republic committed crimes against humanity during the crackdown. Amnesty International also recently published a lengthy report identifying dozens of senior authorities who, it said, engaged in crimes against humanity during the 2022-23 protests over Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian police custody after being detained for wearing “improper hijab”.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned against further public protests, stressing that acts perceived as undermining national security and “social cohesion” are strictly forbidden.
Against that backdrop, Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, has characterised Janfada as an effort to rebrand the Basij, an organisation whose image has become closely associated with the violent suppression of protests. He pointed to the Iran-Iraq war, when hundreds of thousands of Iranians volunteered for front-line service after Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, mobilised through the Basij.
“Since the end of the war in 1988, however, the Basij has evolved into an instrument of domestic coercion and the suppression of dissent, severely damaging the organisation’s public image,” he said.
Alfoneh said the mobilisation campaign could therefore be viewed as an attempt to restore the Basij’s earlier patriotic image in anticipation of future internal and external threats. He identified those threats as potentially extending beyond a US ground invasion to the prospect of a US- and Israeli-instigated civil war in Iran’s peripheral regions and large-scale popular uprisings driven by mounting economic pressure.
The Janfada campaign therefore sits at the intersection of several pressures confronting Iran: the continuing confrontation with the United States, economic shortages, internal political tensions and the authorities’ determination to demonstrate national mobilisation. Its most visible participants are increasingly civilians rather than conventional soldiers, while its public imagery reaches deliberately into schools, families and everyday life.
What began in March as a wartime mobilisation campaign has consequently developed into a broader display of preparedness and political messaging. Its disputed registration figures, military-style public exercises and emphasis on youth and civilian participation have made Janfada a highly visible expression of how Iran’s authorities are seeking to organise society under conditions of war, economic strain and continuing fears of internal unrest.
