Basiji teenager returns from Iran’s old war as his commander takes reins of war efforts with the US

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Around the time Iran supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei decided to appoint Mohsen Rezaei in charge of the war with the US on August 10, an Iranian search team in the mountains of Sulaimani in the Kurdistan Region unearthed another secret from Rezaei’s past. 

The team from the Armed Forces General Staff’s Committee for the Search for the Missing discovered the remains of a 17-year-old boy who accompanied the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces as part of Basij, its paramilitary volunteer militia back in 1987, deep inside Iraqi territory. 

The Iranian team had to pass by the mountainous region near the search area in Mawat, in the Kurdistan Region’s northeast, which had been burnt in a recent drone attack by the IRGC as Tehran has lashed out at every country in the region for assisting Washington, including in Erbil. 

Akbar Babazadeh, who was but a minor at the time of his recruitment during the Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988), was part of the IRGC commanded by Rezaei.

He was one of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of teenagers who would give their lives to defend Iran under the command of Rezaei and his top lieutenants in a devastating war that left the economies of both countries in tatters after eight years of hostilities.

Babazadeh was still a teenager when he was killed in the mountains near Mawat during a cross border incursion by the IRGC on June 10, 1987. 

As Rezaei has returned to the pinnacle of power as the head of Iran’s national security establishment during another major war, the family of the teenager is preparing to receive his remains and give him a final burial. 

The IRGC, despite being a Shiite ideological force, did not shy away from teaming up with left wing Kurdish guerrilla fighters to strike the Iraqi army consisting of mostly Shiite soldiers. The IRGC relied on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as its eyes and ears during the operation in Mawat.

Babazadeh’s story carries particular resonance today as Iran faces a grueling existential threat.

Rezaei's appointment as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council marks the return of one of most staunch architects of the Islamic Republic’s wartime military establishment back at the center of its decision-making apparatus as Tehran prepares for another major confrontation with Washington.

Rezaei’s wartime record remains controversial. He has been criticized for the enormous human cost of some operations conducted under his command and the use of very young fighters, such as Babazadeh, against the Iraqis in what became known as “human waves” attacks, pushing group after group of young Basiji fighters to clear landmines across the frontline. 

Children were indoctrinated into participating in combat and given “keys to paradise” with promises that they would go directly to heaven if they were killed in battle with the Iraq. 

There is no reliable data about how many children took part in the war, but by 1982, the IRGC and Basij had deployed around 400,000 volunteers to the frontline. Given that military service from the age of 18 was obligatory, it appears many of these volunteers were teenagers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross states that at least 10 percent of Iranian prisoners were under 18. “Boys as young as nine were reportedly used in human wave attacks and to serve as mine sweepers in the war with Iraq.”

Nearly four decades later, remains from that war are still being recovered through DNA identification, including Babazadeh’s. 

Rezaei had set up a special forces command center within the IRGC to work alongside Kurdish Peshmerga forces from the PUK and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to launch cross border operations deep inside the Kurdish areas in Iraq. The Ramazan Command, also known as Ramadan Headquarters, would eventually morph into what became known as IRGC Quds Force. 

Ramazan Command Center was responsible for orchestrating an operation in April 1987 in Mawat with the help of the PUK Peshmerga, known as Karbala-10.

The fighting around Mawat also killed Hassan Shafizadeh, one of the most important early figures in the development of the IRGC’s artillery and missile capabilities.

Shafizadeh worked closely with Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, later known as the father of Iran’s missile program. 

Iranian accounts credit the two men with establishing the IRGC’s artillery capability during the Iran-Iraq war before helping build the foundations of its missile forces.

That program has become one of Iran’s most important military assets today as Rezaei prepares for another major round of hostilities with the US. 

Tehran has relied heavily on ballistic missiles and drones to compensate for weaknesses in its conventional air power in order to impose costs on US forces and regional adversaries. Ironically, the IRGC had struck assets belonging to the PUK near the search area in recent weeks.

The connection between the teenager whose remains have now emerged from the mountains of Kurdistan and Iran’s current war have come full circle, conjuring up memories of the Iran-Iraq war which produced much of the military culture that still shapes the Islamic Republic. 

The IRGC and its Basij militia have set up massive shows during months of night time gatherings across the country teaching children and parents how to handle an AK-47 in case of a ground invasion by the US forces during the current hostilities. 

The regular army spokesperson (Artesh) said last week that the government was prepared to pay up to 30,000 American dollars to any Iranians who kill a US soldier or capture one in case of an invasion.

For the IRGC, concepts of sacrifice and martyrdom still outweigh conventional calculations about the human cost of war. This is precisely where Rezaei’s return takes its toll.

At a moment when Iran again faces enormous military and economic pressure, the man placed at the center of its highest national security body does not only represent a figure associated with reducing the costs of confrontation, but a commander whose military mentality was shaped by the loss of tens of thousands of Iranian men including teenagers in human waves and during eight years of conflict with Iraq.

His appointment does not necessarily mean Tehran intends to repeat the military decisions of the 1980s. It does, however, raise an important question about the strategic culture guiding Iran today: how far has the Islamic Republic really moved beyond the mentality of the Iran-Iraq war?

Babazadeh’s case provides stark insight into that question.

The remains of a teenager who disappeared in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan during a war commanded by Mohsen Rezaei have been unearthed, bringing with it a sense of déjà vu to a generation raised under the horrors of the eight-year war. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has followed in his father’s footsteps by bringing Rezaei back to the center of power as the country confronts another existential conflict.

Nearly four decades later, Babazadeh is coming home, those missiles have become central to another Iranian war, and Rezaei is once again sitting at the center of decisions about how long Iran should fight – and how much it is prepared to sacrifice.