Iranian Students Signing Up To Fight Israel

[Purveyor]

MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) - Some 7,000 Iranian students in the city of Isfahan have volunteered to fight for Palestine against Israel while more students are signing up in Tehran, the Fars news agency said on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Iran's religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a religious decree calling for a jihad against Israel for its air strikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that started on Saturday leaving around 360 Palestinians dead and over 1,500 wounded.

"In response to the supreme leader's orders for a jihad (holy war), students from the bassij militia are going to register . . . to go to fight in the occupied Palestinian territories," Fars cited Alireza Zahedi as saying on Monday.

The attacks have led to numerous public protests in Iranian cities and across the world.

The Tehran Times said protesters in Tehran held banners reading, "Death to Israel," "Death to America" and "Muslims unite."

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RIA NOVOSTI: http://en.rian.ru/world/20081230/119226891.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. Hardly surprising

.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. explain something to me

how can the religious leader of a country ask young men to go out and sacrifice their lives and not ask their own country to send their own military in?

This seems sort of like some weird assymetrical declaration of war. Iran will send its citizens in, but not its soldiers.

Odd.