Iranian volunteers set off to fight Israel

TEHRAN, Iran — Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The group — ranging from teenagers to grandfathers — plans to join about 200 other volunteers on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross today. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria over the weekend.

Also Wednesday, in neighboring Iraq, dozens of volunteers helped enlist Iraqis willing to fight along Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon at a Shiite party headquarters in the southern city of Basra. The party's Secretary General Yousif al Mousawi said about 200 people signed up within two hours Wednesday night.

Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop volunteer guerrillas. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah's main sponsors.

Organizers said the volunteers were not carrying weapons, and it was not clear whether Turkey would let them pass.

"We are just the first wave of Islamic warriors from Iran," said Amir Jalilinejad, head of the nongovernmental Student Justice Movement that helped recruit fighters. "More will come from here and other Muslim nations around the world. Hezbollah needs our help."

Military service is mandatory in Iran and nearly every man has at least some basic training.

The group, chanting and marching in military-style formation, assembled Wednesday in a part of Tehran's main cemetery that is reserved for war dead and other "martyrs."

Some bowed before a memorial to Hezbollah-linked suicide bombers who carried out the 1983 blast at Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. servicemen. An almost simultaneous bombing killed 58 French peacekeepers.

Iran insists it is not directly involved in the conflict on the military side, but it remains the group's key pipeline for money.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called for a cease-fire in Lebanon and criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East. He suggested the hostilities fit in with what he called a U.S. effort to influence the future of the Middle East.

"The United States wants to recarve the map of the Middle East, acting through Israel," he said.

Ahmadinejad, seeking to boost Iran's position in Central Asia, met Wednesday in Tajikistan with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov, to forge closer ties among the Persian-speaking states.

"We are united by a common language, culture and religion. It's impossible to divide us by borders or talk about our differences," Ahmadinejad told reporters in the Tajik capital Dushanbe after talks with Karzai and Rakhmonov.

Iran is keen to strengthen its position in Central Asia, a former Soviet region with Muslim traditions. But it faces tough competition there from the United States, China and Russia who are vying for influence in the resource-rich region.