IRAN’s bloodthirsty regime has enlisted child soldiers as young as 12 – as the US Vice President reportedly blasted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in a tense phone call.
JD Vance is said to have chided Netanyahu, claiming the Israeli leader had oversold the chances of toppling the Iranian regime.
Meanwhile, the feared Iranian Revolutionary Guard lowered the minimum age of volunteers patrolling Tehran to 12.
It comes as…
IRGC official Rahim Nadali announced the appalling move in a speech to state media yesterday.
Nadali said that “everyone wants to contribute to the resistance front formed against the [United States]” and that there are “a very large number of volunteers among the youth”.
The regime’s enforcers have increased the number of checkpoints in the Iranian capital since the start of Operation Epic Fury, to try and quash any resistance from its people.
Nadali has claimed that many teenagers are amongst the volunteers taking part in the checks, which consist of “collecting security data and conducting operational patrols.”
Iran‘s brutal security forces is accused of killing as many as 36,500 civilians in an unprecedented crackdown after January’s country-wide protests.
A US official has meanwhile claimed that America’s top brass are unhappy with Israel for dragging them into the drawn-out conflict.
They told Axios: “Before the war, Netanyahu really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was.
“And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements.”
Vance, a longtime opponent of US involvement open-ended wars, has taken a leading role at the negotiating table alongside Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
“If the Iranians can’t strike a deal with Vance, they don’t get a deal. He’s the best they’re gonna get,” a senior US official tells Axios.
It comes after an Iranian military source claimed that over one million Iranian soldiers have enlisted to fight off a potential US invasion.
Trump is weighing up an ambitious ground assault to take control of the highly-strategic Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf in a bid to free the Strait of Hormuz from Iran‘s chokehold.
The US President is said to be increasingly convinced that a ground operation is the most effective way to pressure Iran into accepting Washington‘s 15-point peace plan.
The Pentagon is now considering sending 10,000 troops into Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Thousands of battle-ready US Marines have already been dispatched to the Middle East and could be poised to capture the strategic Kharg Island.
The powerful amphibious force of around 2,200 Marines aboard the USS Tripoli and USS New Orleans is set to enter the region on Friday,
But a source within the reeling regime claimed that Iranian youths are lining up in their droves to enlist in the bloodthirsty Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to defend the island.
“The US wants to open the Strait of Hormuz with suicide and self-destructive tactics; that’s fine,” the source told Iranian state TV.
“We are ready for both their suicide strategy to be executed and for the Strait to remain closed.”
An official from a mediating country warned that while the US may be able to seize Kharg Island, it would likely spark weeks of fierce fighting and extend the war beyond Washington’s four-to-six week window.
They added that the rogue state is unlikely to capitulate, even under invasion, and insisted that Tehran is unwilling to accept terms it had already refused before the conflict.
It comes as Trump once again delayed plans to obliterate Iranian power plants in a bid to secure a deal to end the brutal conflict.
Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum for Tehran’s mullahs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, before dramatically calling it off until the weekend.
That deadline has now been pushed to April 6.
