"We think we’ve won when actually we’re losing. Badly": Next Generation of Jihad Suicide Bombers is being trained at an Islamic School in Houston, children in Texas singing lines such as “I make an oath…one day when you need me, I will be your martyr”

Americans have gotten very comfortable thinking that 9/11 is in the rearview mirror and that after Afghanistan and Iraq, we’ve done enough and we don’t have to think about it anymore. Islamic terrorist plots keep happening and migration is changing the country’s demographics. Mehmet Oz’s GOP/MAGA Senate nomination in PA has been a political game changer that has mostly flown under the radar. Gitmo is being emptied. We think we’ve won when actually we’re losing. Badly.

Here’s a little preview of what’s coming.

The lines include, “I make an oath…one day when you need me, I will be your martyr.”

The Islamic Education Center of Houston, Texas, is organizing a “group recitation” — sung by children as young as four — of a new Iranian anthem saluting Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

“The song Salam Farmande is an expression of one’s love for the Imam of our age,” says the center.

“The regime hopes that the new anthem’s catchy tune will help win over a new generation,” says Potkin Azarmehr, an Iranian activist and journalist. “To reach a broad audience, the lyrics have been translated into several languages — part of Iran’s soft power strategy to export the revolution to the countries in the region and even further…”

Iran has marked the 33rd anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death with a new revolutionary anthem sung by boys and girls segregated in town squares, mosques, and stadiums across the country. 

Ceremonies have been held in sports stadiums nationwide with supporters performing the anthem on the June 3 anniversary date of the Ayatollah’s death.

The regime hopes that the new anthem’s catchy tune will help win over a new generation. To reach a broad audience, the lyrics have been translated into several languages — part of Iran’s soft power strategy to export the revolution to the countries in the region and even further as far as England. 

Meanwhile, Iran’s ruling clerics are facing an existential threat from their own offspring who are asking their parents, “Why did you overthrow the Shah?”

The question by younger Iranians — why an Islamic revolution was necessary four decades ago when the country was enjoying a period of unprecedented growth, prosperity, peace, and stability — seemed to send Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader Ahmad Khatami into a rage. 

“Some are saying that to save the clergy, we should resign from all our official posts. They don’t understand what they are saying. Resigning from our official posts is synonymous to us handing over the government and saying that we are not up to it,” Tehran’s Friday Prayer Leader Ahmad Khatami said.

In order to convey to the young generations the zeal of the 1979 revolutionary days, the regime has resorted to making multiple music videos of children born in the last decade, singing the anthem, “Salute Commander.” They give a military salute, pledging their unswerving loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The imagery, and the lyrics sung by the children, bring to mind the public displays of loyalty to the “Dear Leader” and the “Great Leader” in North Korea.

The original Persian lyrics of the anthem are heavily ideological: “In spite of my small size, when the time comes I will rise up for you … I am a child but the life of my family and I belong to you.”

The children also raise their right arm and sing: “I make an oath to become your Qassem Soleimani when you need me,” and pledge to become Khamenei’s “nameless soldiers,” a reference to Iran’s intelligence operatives.

In line with Iran’s practice of exporting the revolution, the anthem has been translated into Arabic, Turkish, Azeri, Urdu, Hindi, and English.

In Turkey, the pro-Iranian Ahl-ul-Beyt Scholars Association (EHLADER) held a ceremony at Istanbul’s Imam Zin al-Abedin Mosque marking the anniversary of Khomeini’s death. It featured segregated and uniformed boys and girls singing “Salute Commander ” in front of posters of Khomeini and the current leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

One of the speakers at the ceremony was Nureddin Şirin, the editor-in-chief of the pro-Iranian Kudüs TV [Al-Quds TV]. He was one of the suspects identified by Turkish prosecutors during a 2011 investigation into a sophisticated espionage network run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. It exposed the depth and extent of infiltration of Turkish institutions by Iranian elements.

In Nigeria, pro-Iran Shias lined up children to sing the anthem while they held posters of Khomeini and Sheikh Zakzaky, the imprisoned pro-Iran head of Nigeria’s Islamic Movement, who wants to establish the Islamic Republic in Nigeria similar to Iran.

In South Lebanon, as many as 12000 children were gathered in Imam Khomeini Town located in the city of Zotar to sing the Lebanese version of the “Salute Commander”.

In one of the videos, the young daughter of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia commander, Jamal Hussein Faqih, who was killed fighting in Syria, can be seen crying while she sings the anthem as she becomes overwhelmed with emotions.

The English version of the music video for the anthem was made and performed at the Islamic Centre of England, the representative office of Iran’s supreme leader in London in the UK. The lyrics have been watered down in the English version. There is no mention of Qassem Soleimani, but the message is the same.

When the children in the UK sing “We wait under the flag of our leaders,” there should be no doubt that they refer not to the Queen, but to the Supreme Leader of Iran.

It is incredible that the UK government continues to allow these centers to continue their operations. Britain is unable to re-open the British Council in Tehran. Yet Iran’s Islamic centers continue their activities in the UK, which include having children sing anthems that pledge loyalty and dedication to the leader of a hostile state.

MEMRI had documented a previous effort by the Islamic Education Center of Houston.

On February 20, 2019, the Islamic Education Center of Houston, Texas uploaded to its YouTube channel a video of a February 17 ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Morteza Kazemian, a tenth grader, spoke and said that the United States continues to sanction Iran because it is scared of it and that America’s two goals in the Middle East are to support Israel and Saudi Arabia. The audience chanted: “Away with the humiliation… Allah Akbar! Khamenei is our Leader!” In addition, young boys wearing scarves and green headbands sang a song that went: “We are your followers, you are our Leader… We are your soldiers, and together we can all be your power… May Allah always keep your hand upon us… A warrior just like the Battle of Khaybar… May you always be the light to our guidance.” 

Khaybar notes the beginning of the Islamic ethnic cleansing of the Jews which originated with the phrase, “Allahu Akbar”.

The real war is coming. 

References:

jihadwatch.org