With a presence in nearly every city and town across Iran, the paramilitary Basij volunteer corps has an ever-increasing influence on life in the Islamic Republic. Authorities created the Basij, which means mobilization in Persian, just after the country's 1979 Islamic Republic. It is part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. Photo: In this Thursday, August 22, 2013 photo, a female member of the Basij paramilitary militia aims a rifle as a trainer looks over her shoulder in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Atmosphere at the 84th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade held at The Roosevelt Hotel on November 29, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Zuma Wire/Rex Shutterstock)

Russian Communist Party supporters take part in a memorial ceremony to mark the 96th anniversary of the death of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, at Red Square in downtown Moscow on January 21, 2020. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)

A woman walks past a mural painting on a street in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. (Photo by Koji Sasahara/AP Photo)

In this photograph taken on September 13, 2022, newly recruited Taliban fighters parade in armoured vehicles after their graduation ceremony in Herat. (Photo by Mohsen Karimi/AFP Photo)

Sri Lankan military personnel march during the country's 66th Independence Day celebrations in the central town of Kegalle, about 40 kms from the capital Colombo on February 4, 2014. Sri Lanka cemmemorates its independence from British rule on February 4, 1948. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)

This close-up image – of a Holi Festival celebrant in Vrindivan, India, coated in neon-colored powder – was submitted to National Geographic’s Your Shot in the last week of March. On April 1 we published it on our Daily News site, along with seven other bright scenes captured during the Hindu spring Festival of Colors. (Photo by Tinto Alencherry/National Geographic)

Paramilitary policemen carry tyres as they take part in a training session in Zhangye, Gansu Province, China, March 1, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)