TEHRAN (AFP) – A large number of Basijis chanted "Death to America" outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran on Sunday, and expressed their hope that the "Great Satan would be defeated in Iraq.

"The region will only see peace and calm when the occupiers get out," Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)and the Basij forces, told the crowd of men and women who had been bussed to the city center compound.

"We hope that the U.S. is dealt a humiliating defeat in Iraq, so the U.S. warmonger administration won't get re-elected to send U.S. children to the Iraqi quagmire," Safavi added.

"The attack on Islam has begun, but the future of Islam is to spread peace and security throughout the world," Safavi said, while standing behind a symbolic trench made of sandbags in front of the main entrance to the former embassy. The Basijis who numbered around 15,000, chanted slogans of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

On November 4, 1979, in the wake of Islamic revolution in Iran, a group of Muslim students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held around 50 diplomats hostage there for 444 days.

The hostage crisis led to the suspension of diplomatic ties between Washington and Tehran.