[custom_adv]
Western media abounds with photos of young Iranian boys stationed at the front during the war. All are pictured wearing ill-fitting uniforms and headbands emblazoned with the phrase “God is the Greatest” and carrying nothing but a grenade and a small, plastic key “said to open the door to paradise”(4). Based on these photos, many western pundits characterized the Basij as a force of religious fanatics.
