Just hours before a ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran was set to take effect on Tuesday, the Iranian regime made a controversial move. In response to President Trump’s threat to dismantle its energy infrastructure, Iran called upon both children and adults to form human shields around its energy facilities.

This tactic, observers suggest, is intended to sway American public opinion against military action. By risking civilian casualties, especially among children, Iran hopes to turn the tide of U.S. sentiment against the war, simultaneously fostering a sense of unity and defiance within Tehran.

As high-level peace negotiations are poised to commence between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan, Tehran’s manipulation of global media narratives comes to the fore. The regime’s expertise in propaganda, arguably surpassing even its allied forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond, is evident.

A poignant image captures the somber atmosphere in Tehran: a billboard displaying the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, dominates an empty square on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)

“Godfather of propaganda”

Iranian affairs expert Lisa Daftari shared insights with Fox News Digital, highlighting the regime’s longstanding strategy of using civilians as pawns in its geopolitical games. “The Islamic Republic has mastered propaganda over its 47-year history,” Daftari noted. “It often presents one facade at the negotiating table while pursuing different actions on the ground. The Trump administration must approach these discussions with a healthy dose of skepticism. Historically, Iran has not adhered to its commitments regarding weaponry, and there’s little reason to expect a change now.”

Daftari further explained Iran’s pattern of leveraging civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, mosques, schools, and now power plants, as shields in military contexts. “This approach has been employed in Lebanon via Hezbollah, in Gaza through Hamas, and now, they’re implementing it on their own soil. Iranian citizens who refuse to comply face severe repercussions.”

Daftari, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the Foreign Desk, added that, “Iran’s regime has never hesitated to use its own people as a shield. The difference now is they’re doing it in front of cameras, in real time, knowing exactly which images will make prime-time news around the world. This is propaganda. And the two-week ceasefire just gave them more time to manipulate the West and continue on in their narrative warfare.”

Members of security forces watch over the crowd during a funeral procession held for IRGC Navy Chief Alireza Tangsiri, alongside other senior naval commanders and their families who were killed in US-Israeli strikes in late March, on April 1, 2026, in Tehran, Iran.  (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Capitalizing on a tragedy

Right at the beginning of “Operation Epic Fury”, the world’s media was full of accounts from Iran of an air strike that reportedly hit an Iranian school for girls in the town of Minab Feb. 28. The air strike reportedly killed 175 people, most of whom were children, at the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, according to the regime. The school was located on the same street as buildings used by the IRGC. A Pentagon investigation was launched in March to look into the allegations that a U.S. missile struck the school.

Speaking to Fox News Digital last month, Iranian-American journalist Banafsheh Zand, who has been following the reporting, pointed to the fact that the school that has been there for more than a decade and its reported affiliation with Iran’s military. She said that while the regime claims between 168 fatalities and 180 fatalities, mostly girls between the ages of 7 and 12, along with teachers and parents from the school, there has been no independent confirmation of the reported casualty figures. 

“There is no confirmation on the number of people, from anyone other than regime sources,” she said. “Some people in the area said it was 65 boys. Sixty-five boys? What are 65 boys doing in a girls’ school at 10:30 on a Saturday morning?”

Both Democratic and Republican U.S. administrations have classified Iran’s regime as a leading state-sponsor of terrorism.

Iranian worshippers hold up their hands as signs of unity with Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during an anti-Israeli rally to condemn Israel’s attacks on Iran, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on June 20, 2025.  (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Fooling the media

Speaking on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ on Thursday, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said the American media was “essentially… carrying water for Iran.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at JINSA, told Fox News Digital, “The regime wants to show the Iranian people that it is not weakened despite all the deaths in its leadership and losses in its arsenals, and to claim legitimacy by showing it is winning against the eternal American and Israeli enemies.”

He said, “Like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran uses civilians as human shields for propaganda purposes. It cares nothing for the safety and fate of its own people. It wants to portray the country as undaunted and willing to sacrifice for victory. And if civilians are killed, all the better for the regime’s political goals… Iran wants to undermine U.S. domestic support for the war by framing it as America doing Israel’s bidding, and by using AI-generated disinformation to depict massive destruction and casualties at U.S. bases in the Middle East.”

The regime suffered a crisis of legitimacy after millions of Iranians poured into the streets in January and demanded the dissolution of the Islamic Republic.

Both the IRGC and Basij — the regime’s street fighting paramilitary troops — played a key role in the mass murder of 45,000 Iranian civilians in January, who protested the regime. President Trump said in his address to the nation that the regime killed 45,000 people. The previous death toll was estimated to be over 35,000 people.

Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Ruhe said, “As it did before the war, it also wants to delegitimize protesters and other internal opposition by depicting them as American and Israeli agents. It can be expected to ramp up all of these propaganda efforts during the ceasefire. The United States and our partners will be part of this intended audience, too.”

Using children in war

Adding to its deadly propaganda mix, the regime freely uses child soldiers to achieve its goals. According to Amnesty International, “Eyewitness accounts and verified audiovisual evidence show child soldiers having been deployed at IRGC checkpoints and patrols, armed with weapons, including AK47pattern rifles.”

Erika Guevara-Rosas, senior director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, for Amnesty stated in the report that, “The Iranian authorities are shamelessly encouraging children as young as 12 to join an IRGC run military campaign, putting them in grave danger and violating international law, which prohibits the recruitment and use of children in the military. Recruiting children under 15 into the armed forces constitutes a war crime.”

Iranian schoolboys wear Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military uniforms and shout anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans during a ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in southern Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 1, 2026 (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Jennifer Dyer, a retired commander of U.S. Naval Intelligence, told Fox News “I’d say the remnant of the regime can’t muster enough human shields to be doing it all over the place.  The people are too resistant.  Protests continued in the country the last couple of days, and some reporting on social media indicated a crackdown by the Basij on protesters after the so-called ceasefire was announced.”

In late March, a deputy of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Rasoul Allah Corps of Greater Tehran, Rahim Nadali, declared that the state launched a  recruitment campaign called the “Homeland-Defending Combatants for Iran” that is “open to volunteers” aged 12 and older. The drive to recruit child soldiers took place in mosques and bases of the paramilitary organization Basij. The recruitment campaign sought adolescents to join “combatants defending the homeland.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Iran’s U.N. Mission in New York for a comment.