CSMonitor.com
TEHRAN, IRAN — Within days of Sunni jihadists' surge across Iraq last month, 5,000 Iranian volunteers had registered to fight and defend Iraq's Shiite shrines.
Many of them signed up via a website calling on recruits to battle "terrorists" from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which had vowed to attack every Shiite holy site in Iraq as it marched from Syria, south toward Baghdad.
Iranian men vowed to be the first in line, one writing in the comments that his “only request from God is martyrdom." Another wrote “my heart is tearing apart” over Iraq.
