Targets: Iraq and Israel 2,000 suicide bombers recruited

TEHERAN

SOME 2,000 Iranians, one as young as seven, have signed up with a shadowy
Islamic group to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq and Israel, a Teheran
newspaper said yesterday.

'So far, 2,000 people have registered,' group spokesman Mohammad Samadi told
the reformist newspaper Shargh.

'Twenty-five per cent are under 18 years, 55 per cent are between 18 and 40,
and the rest are 40 to 80,' said Mr Samadi of the Committee for the
Commemoration of Martyrs of the World Islamic Movement. 'The youngest is a
seven-year-old child.'

The group launched its recruitment drive late last month, taking names and
telephone numbers of volunteers after the main weekly Muslim prayers on
Fridays.

The action was intended to 'show our friends in Iraq and all other Muslims
that we are ready to give our lives to defend our honour and Islam's', Mr
Samadi said then, pointing to US military operations in the Iraqi holy
cities of Najaf and Karbala, which are revered by Shi'ites in Iran as well
as Iraq.

'Suicide operations are the best way to fight the oppressors and they have
already shown their worth in Lebanon and during the war between Iran and
Iraq,' he said, referring to the neighbours' bloody 1980-88 conflict. -- AFP


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