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→Financial Backing
Saddam Hussein expected these loans to be forgiven without repayment, leading to conflict when they were not. Most notably, tensions between Kuwait and Iraq lead to Hussein's 1990 invasion (see [[Invasion of Kuwait]]), among other factors.
Saddam Hussein expected these loans to be forgiven without repayment, leading to conflict when they were not. Most notably, tensions between Kuwait and Iraq lead to Hussein's 1990 invasion (see [[Invasion of Kuwait]]), among other factors.
{{Anchor|Iranian child soldiers}}
==Iranian child soldiers==
In 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini created the ''Basij Mostazafan'' a mass movement of young people under 17 years of age. When the Iran-Iraq War started in 1980, Khomeini issued a [[fatwa]] and promise of paradise and they were incorporated into the Iranian military. The Iranian clergy took over command from the regular military leaders in mid-1982. In July 1982 Iran launched Operation Ramadan near Basra. The clergy used "human-wave" attacks calling for the young people from age 9 years old and up to move forward in human wave attacks to clear minefields so the regular Army could follow.<ref>[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), ''Iraqi Retreats, 1982-84''], Globalsecruity.org, retrieved 20 March 2007.</ref> Matthias Küntzel quotes an Iraqi officer's description of one such encounter in the summer of 1982.
:''“They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging...You can shoot down the first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!'' <ref>[http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/ahmadinejads-demons ''Ahmadinejad's Demons: A Child of the Revolution Takes Over''], Matthias Küntzel, The New Republic, 24 April 2006 .</ref>
Other reports appeared in the Iranian daily newspaper ''Ettelaat'' and later an eyewitness gave an account to the German newspaper ''Frankfurter Allgemeine'' in 2002. Some 100,000 were killed this way.
==The "Tanker War"==
==The "Tanker War"==