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)

Soldiers march to mark the Armed Forces Day and commemorate the landing of the yacht Granma, which brought the Castro brothers, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and others from Mexico to Cuba to start the revolution in 1959, in Havana, Cuba, January 2, 2017. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (R) stands in front of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as they arrive for U.S. President George W. Bush's annual State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in this January 23, 2007 file photo. Hillary Clinton announced her second run for the presidency on April 12, 2015 starting her campaign as the Democrats' best hope of fending off a crowded field of lesser-known Republican rivals and retaining the White House. (Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters)

A French soldier stands near a military combat command vehicle on display at The Defence and Security Exhibition on September 13, 2011 in London, England. ExCeL London is hosting the exhibition with hundreds of manufacturers from all over the world displaying their hardware. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A man holds a metal bar as a weapon during a training day for former soldiers and volunteers train in a makeshift camp in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, October 28, 2015. Haiti disbanded its abusive armed forces two decades ago but uniformed veterans and young recruits are resurfacing to add another destabilising factor to the volatile Caribbean nation already dealing with a political vacuum. (Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)

Omani Tactical & Commando personnel are seen during the month-long GCC joint security exercise “Arabian Gulf Security 1” in Manama, Bahrain November 1, 2016. “Arabian Gulf Security 1” exercises will continue until mid-November with the participation of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. (Photo by Hamad I. Mohammed/Reuters)

A Kurdish girl wears her relative's assault rifle and ammunition belt as she waits at the Iraqi Kurdish Shaqouli checkpoint, some 35 kilometres east of Mosul, on November 10, 2016. Since the start of the Mosul offensive the Kurds have moved their border some 10 kms closer to Iraq's second city, marking it out with a line in the sand. (Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP Photo)