Scorpion Deception

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The boy was next in line to be shot. He was thin, dark-haired, about seven, small for his age. He was younger than the other boys, most of them teenage Basiji, volunteers for the front. They had been rounded up from schools and playgrounds across Iran to be shahidan. Martyrs. There weren’t enough guns or ammunition for the Iranian forces fighting the Iraqis. The Basiji boys were sent unarmed to clear the minefields with their bodies ahead of the human wave attacks of Iranian Army and Pasdaran Revolutionary Guard soldiers. “Saddam Hussein has artillery; Iran has men,” the ayatollahs said.

But the boys lined up were those who had panicked under enemy fire or ran when the first mine exploded. They had been brought to a warehouse parking lot near the port to be executed for cowardice. The warehouse’s brick wall and the concrete pavement in front of it were stained red and pockmarked by bullets.

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