Iran has released a propaganda video aimed at recruiting child soldiers to defend Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

A new promotional video clip entitled ‘Martyrs who defend the sacred shrine’ has been broadcast on Iranian state media in recent days, encouraging children to take part in the civil war in Syria.

It comes after Iran's army chief said the forces it had deployed in Syria in the first such operation abroad since the 1979 revolution were volunteers working under Revolutionary Guards supervision, and the regular army was not directly involved.

Propaganda:A new promotional video clip entitled ‘Martyrs who defend the sacred shrine’ has been broadcast on Iranian state media in recent days

Child soldiers: The Iranian regime's propaganda video encourages children to take part in the civil war in Syria

The video was produced by the official Bassij Music House, the propaganda arm of the regime’s paramilitary Bassij, a branch of the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), according to the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran.

In parts of this clip, young children can be heard singing: 'On my leader orders I am ready to give my life.

'I don’t regret parting from my country. In this just path I am wearing my martyrdom shroud.

'From Mashhad [north-east Iran], I will walk on foot to Damascus. I am like the bird who flocks to the sacred shrine.'

Commenting on the broadcasting of the new promotional clip, Shahin Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: 'This promotional clip manifests the anti-human nature of the regime which seeks to even mobilize the children of its own loyalists as cannon fodder.'

The video was translated by the exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which said the campaign was reminiscent of the use of child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

The Islamic Republic announced this month that it had sentcommandos from the army's Brigade 65 to Syria as advisers,suggesting it was using its regular army as well as forces fromthe elite Revolutionary Guards to help Assad's forces in the country's civil war.

The video was produced by the Bassij Music House, the propaganda arm of the regime’s paramilitary Bassij

In parts of this clip, young children can be heard singing: 'On my leader orders I am ready to give my life'

A boy wearing military fatigues is pictured tying the laces on a pair of boots in the video shown on state media

Iran is Assad's main regional ally and has provided militaryand economic support for his conflict with rebel groups andIslamic State militants.

'Some volunteers have been sent to Syria, under thesupervision of the related organisation, and among them theremight be some of the Brigade 65 forces,' Iran's armed forces chiefAtaollah Salehi was quoted by the Tasnim news agency as saying.

Iran has two armed forces - a regular army serving as anational defence force, and the Islamic Revolutionary GuardCorps that was created after the revolution to protect theIslamic Republic against both internal and external adversaries.

Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Guards'foreign operations, went to Moscow in July last year to helpRussia plan its military intervention in Syria and forge anIranian-Russian alliance to support Assad.

The propaganda video was translated by the exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Iran is Assad's main regional ally and has provided military and economic support for his conflict with rebel groups and Islamic State militants

Soleimani was in Moscow again earlier this month to furthercooperation on Syria, security sources said.

Several saidSoleimani also wanted to talk about how Russia and Iran couldhelp Damascus take back full control of the city of Aleppo.