Why is it so easy to get people to sign up? Why won’t American Muslim spokesmen move beyond “the Qur’an forbids suicide” and answer that question? From AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:
TEHRAN: Hundreds of Iranian men and women, even children, declared their willingness to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq and Israel following Friday prayers in Tehran.
The “volunteers” signed their names and gave their telephone numbers to an obscure group calling itself the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the World Islamic Movement.
A spokesman, Mohammad Yasser Samadi, said the action was to “show our friends in Iraq and all other Muslims that we are ready to give our lives to defend our honor.
“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.
However, there was no evidence the action was anything more than symbolic, and Samadi said they would renounce suicide operations if asked to by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
As far as I know, there is no sign that he has asked them to yet.