Iran–Iraq War Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini called for the foundation of a youth militia in November 1979, during the
Iranian Revolution. According to
Baqer Moin, the Basij are known for their employment of
human wave attacks which cleared minefields or drew the enemy's fire. The typical
human wave tactic was for Basijis (often very lightly armed and unsupported by artillery or air power) to march forward in straight rows. While casualties were high, the tactic often worked when employed against poorly trained members of the Iraqi regular army. According to
Dilip Hiro, by the spring of 1983 the Basij had trained 2.4 million Iranians in the use of arms and sent 450,000 to the front. In 1985 the
IRNA put the number of Basijis at 3 million, quoting from Hojjatoleslam Rahmani. In 1988, college Basiji organizations were established on college campuses to fight "
Westoxification" and potential student agitation against the government.) Part of the Basij revival was an emphasis on concepts such as Development Basij (Basij-e-Sazandegi), Other sources describe the Ansar-e-Hezbollah as part of the Basij.
Syrian Civil War, 2011–2021 One foreign conflict the Basij were involved in was on the side of the IRI's ally the
Syrian Baathist regime. A Western analyst believed thousands of Iranian paramilitary Basij fighters were stationed in Syria as of December 2013. Syria's geopolitical importance to Iran and its role as one of Iran's crucial allies prompted the involvement of Basij militiamen in the ongoing
Syrian Civil War. The Basij militia, similar to Hezbollah fighters, work with the Syrian army against rebel forces. Such involvement poses new foreign policy challenges for a number of countries across the region, particularly Israel and Turkey as Iran's influence becomes more than just ideological and monetary on the ground in the Syrian conflict. The Basij involvement in the Syrian Civil War reflects previous uses of the militia as a proxy force for Iranian foreign policy in an effort to assert Iranian dominance in the region and frightens
Salim Idriss, head of the
Free Syrian Army.
Protest movements Iran has seen a series of political/social/economic protest movements during the 21st century that its security forces have been active in crushing—the
July 1999 student protests,
2009 presidential election protests,
protests in 2011–2012,
2019–2020 and the 2022-2023
Mahsa Amini protests. When protests erupt, the Basij often act as the state's "iron fist". In 2010, an anonymous Norwegian student doing research in Iran claims he witnessed gruesome atrocities inside a Basij camp after being abducted by the unit while riding on a bus. According to the account the student gave to Norwegian embassy officials, he witnessed detained political dissidents being 'disemboweled', burned to death, and deliberately crushed by a riot control truck. During the protests, Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei created the
Haydaryan, a new paramilitary force specifically dedicated to preserving his position; several of the founding Haydaryan members came from the Basij.
Mahsa Amini protests According to Reuters, Basij were at the "forefront" of the Islamic Republic's efforts to stamp out the protests over the
death of Mahsa Amini and related lack of political and social freedoms the country. These protests, starting in September 2022 and dying out the following spring, led to over 500 deaths, including the deaths of 68 minors according to the non-profit organization
Iran Human Rights. Unlike some earlier protests they were "nationwide, spread across social classes, universities, the streets [and] schools". Journalists and human rights activists have catalogued a number of serious human rights violations used to crush the unrest by the Basij and other IRI security forces. These included
forced confessions, threats to uninvolved family members, and torture, including electric shocks,
controlled drowning, and
mock execution (based on CNN interviews); sexual violence/rape (based on testimony and social media videos corroborated by a CNN investigation), “systematic" attempts to blind protesters by shooting at their eye with projectiles such as "pellets, teargas canisters, paintball bullets" (activist media group IranWire documented at least 580 cases). Using ambulances to transport security forces and kidnapped protesters under the guise of rushing injured civilians to receive emergency medical attention. The Iranian state media reports that security forces such as the Basij were targeted and killed by "rioters and gangs" mainly the members of a specific unknown organization that orchestrated this whole protest However, according to BBC Persian service, these figures may not be reliable as some of those reported by state media to be loyalist Basij militiamen killed by the "rioters", were actually protesters killed by security forces, whose families were pressured by security forces to go along with the false reporting, threatening them with death if they failed to cooperate.
2025–2026 Iranian protests The Basij militia were reported to play a central role in suppressing the 2025–2026 protests, often operating alongside other Iranian security forces in crowd control, arrests, and enforcement actions against demonstrators. As in previous protest waves, journalists and human rights organizations alleged the use of excessive force, arbitrary detention, and intimidation tactics, including the violent dispersal of protests and the targeting of activists and perceived organizers. Observers noted continuity with earlier crackdowns, particularly in the Basij's decentralized deployment in urban areas and its role in monitoring and controlling civilian activity.
2026 Iran war As a result of the
2026 Iran war, during which Israel struck their bases, the Basij has "been broken into tens of thousands" of cells, which "fanned out across mosques, schools, and encampments under bridges." A few weeks into the conflict, an Iranian military official stated on state television that security forces were
recruiting children as young as 12 to aid in the monitoring of checkpoints and perform other duties as part of the Basij in Tehran. Rahim Nadali, an
IRGC official in Tehran, announced the launch of the initiative "For Iran" which recruits 12 year olds into the Basij militia for them to assist in manning "operational patrols" and checkpoints, as well as providing logistical support and performing other duties. This move contradicts Iran's commitment to abstain from the use of children in military activities under
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, Nadali justified to move stating "Given that the age of those coming forward has dropped and they are asking to take part, we lowered the minimum age to 12". According to
Al-Arabiya, from the beginning of the war, Tehran residents reported of untrained teenagers and youths armed with
Uzi sub-machine guns and
Kalshnikov rifles, stopping vehicles, shouting orders, and firing warning shots into the air. ==Organization, membership, duties, activities==