Iran caught teaching CHILDREN how to use AK-47s - while Ayatollah 'declares jihad'

Iran has been caught teaching children how to use AK-47 - just as its Ayatollah "declared jihad" in a series of ominous social media posts.

Members of the Iranian military have been seen operating public gun kiosks at public "night-gatherings" in the streets of Tehran.

Civilians, including women and children, are being shown how to assemble and use assault weapons to prepare for further conflict.

The call to arms has extended to hosts of Iranian state media, who were seen delivering addresses to the public while holding assault weapons.

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A presenter on Iran's Channel 3, Mobina Nasiri, told viewers: "They sent me a weapon from Vanak Square so that I too, like all of you people, can learn how to use it."

And Hossein Hosseini, an anchor on Iran's state-run Ofogh, fired a Kalashnikov into the ceiling of the TV studio after receiving instruction on how to use the weapon from a masked member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The escalation in preparations were made after Donald Trump called off strikes on Iran.

But he continued to make threats on social media, warning the "clock is ticking, and they better get moving, fast, or there won't be anything left of them."

Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has also taken to social media, delivering a series of posts which counter-terror experts have framed as a call to jihad.

The Ayatollah said: "Among the most valuable achievements of the Third Sacred Defense [against the American and Zionist invasion] is the emergence of Iran at the level of a major, influential power."

Dr Omar Mohammed, a counterterrorism analyst at George Washington University, said the Supreme Leader was describing the war as a "religious duty".

He told Fox News: "Strip the euphemism away, and what Khamenei is invoking here is jihad - sacred religious war."

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"'Sacred Defence' is the Islamic Republic's preferred term for jihad against an aggressor; it carries the full weight of religious obligation in Shia jurisprudence," he added.

The previous Supreme Leader and father of Mojtaba, Ali Khamenei, was killed by Israeli and American military strikes in February.

Dr Mohammed said the explicit naming of "Americans and the Zionists" was not "loose phrasing".

He added the former Ayatollah had made "hatred of America and hatred of Jews the twin pillars of its ideology for more than 30 years".

In another post, the Supreme Leader said: "By earnestly pursuing the correct, necessary policy of population growth, the great Iranian nation will be able to play a major role and experience strategic leaps in the future, taking long strides toward building the new Islamic-Iranian civilization."

Some within Iran have recognised technology which the President has demanded it surrenders as crucial parts of the nation.

One elderly man in Tehran was seen holding a hand-made placard which read: "Nuclear and missile technology is as important as our borders, so we will protect them."

He told CNN: "Trump knows we don’t have a bomb, but he is attacking us anyway."

Another woman, Fatima said: "We know this war isn’t over. We know Trump is not really going to negotiate."

"He's just going to be, like, 'You do what I tell you or I'm going to kill you.' And then he's going to attack us even if we do as he says," she added.

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