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The Rise of "Shia Power".
Muslim umma a trial of strength for the outsider forces
The disagreement over who should be the Caliphate (Ali or Othman), had led to a split within the Muslim world and created the Shia creed. It goes without saying that both creeds believe in God and Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him). Like Protestants and Catholics in Christianity, Sunnis and Shias are the main sects or branches of the Muslim community, and they share the core beliefs and practices of Islam
The Arab world has gone through pure religious disputes as well as political conflicts disguised in religious clothing and it really turning the (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Plastine, Yemen) a new battle Ground for their created hatred. The government and security agencies are now a Playground for Shia militias in Iraq, other side of the new official order, as was the case with the Sunni militias emerged.
The region fell prey to a similar bout of sectarian fever during the first Gulf War between Iraq and Iran
"From inside Pakistan's border to the Mediterranean, almost every land (Muslim) is in crisis. Suddenly, all the Western talk of a Sunni-Shia war looks troublingly real". Its shameful for the society to indulge in sectarian riots and then blame it on others despite the sects living almost together for hundreds of years
Iran stands for Shia power and Saudi Arabia and the Arab world essentially represent the Sunni face of Islam and each has struggles within between radicals and moderates. They all read the same Quran but they dont agree on interpretation of a single page of it
King Abdullah of Jordan warned that a "Shia crescent" was being established across the region. He was referring to the growing influence of Iran in Iraq, Iran's support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the strong alliance between Tehran and Syria.
The envoy suggested that any attempt by Hezbollah to take over the Lebanese capital would be dealt with in the same way as if the Saudi capital itself had been attacked. The threat had an instant effect, with a call from the Iranian ambassador in Beirut to the leader of Hezbollah to end the confrontation. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, has been more outspoken, calling on Tehran to stop interfering and urging it to "become part of the solution, not part of the problems of our world".
New Statesman - Sunni v Shia
The clash between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the Arab world is already the greatest single cause of strife around the globe. It is taking place within countries and between countries. It has been brewing for years, but only now do governments appreciate the dangers
Sunni jihadist militants outmaneuvered the Iranians in championing militant Islamism. That Battle of Islamic Fundamentalisms, it, was won by Sunnis, far beyond the American godfather's expectations: The Afghan jihad was Osama bin Laden's training ground. As Washington had backed Sunnis against (revolutionary) Shias in the 1980s and 1990s, so it would play Shias against (jihadi) Sunnis after September 11.
The US and Iran are often on the same side, fighting Sunni and Salafist forces. Iran and the US both supported the Northern Alliance, which defeated the Taliban and both countries support the Shia-led government in Iraq and both want to see the radical Sunni Salafists defeated. Strategically, from US and Israel, this rift can become their biggest weapon
The neo cold war (verbal war) in the Middle-East is actually between Saudi and Iran, with the former backed by USA.
The best barometer for how far Iraq is better is the willingness of the 4.7 million refugees, one in five Iraqis who have fled their homes and are now living inside or outside Iraq, to go home. By Jan 2009 only 150,000 had returned and some do so only to look at the situation and then go back to Damascus or Amman. There are 10 million Refugees in Pakistan from Afghanistan, and more are coming due to war situation there hardly any Sunni population left in Northern alliance areas (Shia majority)
This important Arab country has become Shia, as a consequence of American intervention. It is the very first Shia Arab country. United States was to facilitate transfer of power from one sect to the other. Iraqi ayatollah, Ayatollah Sistani, came out with a very simple mantra, "one man, one vote," there are estimates by the U.S. government that last year there was over $3 billion of contributions made to Ayatollah Sistani by Shiites, all the way from the United States and Europe to India for shia creed http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/shia-revival-how-conflicts-within-
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has stirred up sectarian tensions well beyond Iraqs borders and destroyed the regional balance of power that had existed between a theocratic, Shia-led Iran and the secular, Sunni-led regime of Saddam Hussein from Middle east to Afghanistan and Pakistan
When the "Lancet study" (that is, the Johns Hopkins study) estimated two years ago that 600,000 Iraqis had died." Due to sectarian violence in Iraq
The rampant sectarian violence is Shiite militia and their "death squads" that have powerful backing from political parties in the Shiite-dominated government.
Mahdi Army, one main Shiite militia which is loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, controls at least 30 seats in the 275-member parliament. The other major Shiite militia, known as the Badr Organization, is affiliated to Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the country's single most powerful political party.
According to one estimate, as of early Jan 2009, 1,321 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq Sunni insurgent organizations include Ansar al-Islam. Radical groups include Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, Jeish al-Taiifa al-Mansoura, Jeish Muhammad, and Black Banner Organization.
According to the British television Channel 4, from 2005 through early 2006, commandos of the Ministry of the Interior which is controlled by the Badr Organization, and who are almost exclusively Shia Muslims - have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians
Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr, has admitted death squads and other unauthorised armed groups have been carrying out sectarian killings in the country. In a BBC interview on April 11 2006, he denied these groups were his responsibility. He added that there are non-governmental armed groups called the Facility Protection Service, set up in 2003 by the U.S. occupation, which number 150,000 effectives. These 150,000 hired guns are "out of order, not under our control," along with another 30,000 private security guards, Jabr said.
Militia-dominated government death squads were reportedly "torturing to death or summarily" executing "hundreds" of Sunnis "every month in Baghdad alone," many arrested at random. these commandos [ Badr Organization militiamen controlling the Ministry of the Interior] - who are almost exclusively Shia Muslims - have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians"Channel 4 program Dispatches
Even more pessimistically, analysts and think tanks said Iraq's conflict was even worse than "civil war", because it "suffers from at least four internal conflicts -- a Shiite-Sunni civil war in the center, intra-Shiite conflicts in the south, a Sunni insurgency in the west and ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds in the north.
The process of "debaathification" of Iraqi society, which removed significant obstacles to the Shia's assumption of power, is seen as an important cause of the ongoing Sunni insurgency. Now the Sunni backlash has began to spread far beyond Iraq's borders - from Syria to Pakistan - raising the specter of a broader struggle for power between the two groups that could threaten stability in the region. To avoid this will require satisfying Shia demands while placating Sunni anger and alleviating Sunni anxiety in Iraq and throughout the region.
Shia power in Iraq and Afghanistan has tilted the Shia-Sunni balance toward a fairer distribution of forces and that Shias need to continue leaning toward the West, lest they again lose ground to their Sunni adversaries.
Perhaps the gravest of America's mistakes in Iraq was its dismantlement of Iraq's governing institutions and army, creating an enormous power vacuum
Sunni-Shia tensions thus began when it was construed that the destruction of the old meant the destruction of "Sunni power" in favour of the rise of "Shia power".
The dismantlement of the Baathist edifices of government was quickly filled with sectarian militias that embarked on the worst spree of ethnic cleansing crimes in the modern history of Iraq.
American way of bulldozing the past entirely was not just a tactical error but a crime against Iraq and its people, external actors, including the, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran will destroy the Taif Agreement in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, where Muslims are half of the population, with slight Shia majority, the actual rift is between Hezbollah and anti-Syrian Lebanon Govt. The Lebanon Govt is backed by the Christians and Sunnis along with Saudi and USA while the opposition Shias are backed by Iran and Syria. It is actually a trial of strength for the outsider forces
The death of Hariri Lebanonized the Sunna. The growing influence of Sunni Islamists in Lebanon is fueled by rising anti-American and sectarian sentiments resulting from the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq Afghanistan with Iranian help and Syria , Lebanons ongoing political stalemate, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, and the summer 2006 war in which Israel devastated large parts of Lebanon. While mainstream Islamist groups continue to dominate the political and social environment in Lebanon
Shii-Sunni tensions reached an unprecedented peak in January 2007, when supporters of Hizbollah and the Amal Movement (another prominent Shi movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri) clashed with Hariris Mustaqbal supporters in violent scenes that reminded the Lebanese of the civil war days. Many Sunni Islamists make no secret of their anti-Syrian sentiments.
But the estimates are that they are about 10-to-15 percent of the Muslim world, which puts them somewhere between 165-to-190 million people.Only Iran is overwhelmingly Shia, where they form 85 per cent of the population. Across the Persian Gulf, the littoral states with significant proportions of Shia include Kuwait, with 30 per cent of its population,
Bahrain with 65 per cent, Saudi Arabia with 10 per cent, Qatar with 16 per cent and the United Arab Emirates with just 6 per cent. Approximately half of all Shia live in the arc beginning in Lebanon, with 30 per cent of its population being Shia, and ranging through Iraq with 60 per cent, Azerbaijan with 75 per cent, Afghanistan with 20 per cent to Pakistan, also with some 10 -15 per cent. Yemen with 15-30% are shia population
In Syria, the ruling elite is Alawite, a Shia- affiliated group with just 15 per cent of the country's people. Alawite domination has bred deep resentment among many of Syria's Sunni Muslims who constitute 70 per cent of the population. Uprisings by Sunni Islamists in the early 1980s were partly fuelled by this sectarian divide
Sunni was dominant form of Islam in most part of Iran from the beginning until rise of Safavids Empire. According to Mortaza Motahhari the majority of Iranian scholars and masses remained Sunni till the time of the Safawids
Currently, Iraq has three major groups holding sway separately, with Sunni Arabs Controlling mostly west and middle provinces, Shiites in south and Kurds in north
Last national election in January 2005 was wracked by insurgency and Shiite-Sunni conflict that nearly plunged the country into full-scale civil war. Sunni candidates consequently marginalized themselves, and enabled a disproportionate share of power, with Shiites and Kurds controlling seats even in provinces with big Sunni communities.
In November 2006, "sectarian violence" became a commonly used phrase by the Bush Administration in place of the term "civil war" when referring to the war in Iraq. ...
Ethno-sectarian division, Iraqs politics are further fractured by disagreements between centralizers and de-centralizers. Sadrs Mahdi Army militia and ISCI-controlled local security forces have already fought pitched battles for control across southern Iraq
The latest statements by the leading Sunni scholar, Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi, warning of Shia's attempts to do missionary work in the Sunni world triggered massive outrage among Shia circles. In a turn for the worse, a group of Sunni symbols followed suit while hackers attacked Shia Internet websites including that of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Ayatollah Khomeini along with 77 Shia websites.
Shia retaliated by hacking some 900 Sunni websites, particularly those close to the Wahabi current including the mufti of Saudi Arabia and a group of prominent Saudi scholars. Such confrontation is really alarming, Al-Ahram Center for Political & Strategic Studies
Three relevant phases of Shia ascendance could be traced. The first started with the triumph of the Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. Iran then embraced the strategy of exporting the Revolution to neighboring societies.
The second phase followed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, when Shia became the hegemonic political group. This situation had an impact on the Shia of neighbouring Gulf countries and the rest of the world.
The third phase was marked by the Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006. As Hizbullah emerged victorious, a euphoria expressing admiration and respect to its courage and military might swept the region.
Some observers propose that the US and Israel used this situation to drive a wedge between Sunni and Shia Muslims via magnifying the threat of the alleged Shia invasion of Sunni community
Its shameful for the society to indulge in secreterian riots and then blame it on others despite the sects living almost together for hundreds of years.War in Iraq was not a purely military and political operation, it is social thrust
The tearing down of the old in Iraq, indeed, a breeze. It was building a new where the problems began to set the country on the precipitous slope to a civil war that will be bloodier and more destructive than the protracted Lebanese civil war. The hostilities between the parties pitted against each other in this war result of many causes, not among which are the regional maps that Israel and the US drew up decades ago, or any number of "conspiracies",
The Western wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been crucial factors in shaping the
Debate among Islamists inside the country and in providing them with ammunition
To advance their agenda in so far as it appears to confirm their worst fears of a Western campaign against Islam and Muslims. Some three quarters of the 17,000 prisoners held by the Americans are Sunni in Iraq, who will be mercy of Badr militia after US troops withdraw from Iraq in July 2009
In Bahrain, ruled by a Sunni royal family, Shia uneasiness has led to a strong protest movement. In both countries, after socialism and nationalism had their heyday among the Shias until the late 1970s, and after the Iranian Revolution became a magnet in the 1980s, Gulf Arab Shias increasingly turned for guidance toward Najaf-based Ayatollah Sistani, whom they consider their authoritative marja'
Ahmadinejad, elected in the summer of 2005, and Iran's potential influence on Arab Shia networks. Both the Badr and the Sadr movements in Iraq, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tareeka jafaria, Spiha Mohammed in Pakistan, Bharian, Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, Zaydis tribe in Yemen receive Iranian funds, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has played a central role in training and equipping their paramilitary.espically in Khrumm Agency in Pakistan Iranian Revolunairy Guard fight a pitch battle along Shia Turi tribe against Taliban led Bangesh tribe (Sunni)
The great majority of Pakistan's Muslims are Sunni. Shias form about 15%. Violence between the two communities dates back to the 1980s.In Pakistan, Shias also played a key political role. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, its ill-fated prime minister, were both Shias, Feeling the wind shift in the 1990s, Benazir styled herself a Sunni, but her Iranian mother, her husband from a big Shia landowning family 2009 currently President Asif Ali Zardari is Shias too. Though the more numerous Sunnis eventually brushed Shia influence aside. In the 1980s, under General Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan turned toward a politics of Islamization that was tantamount to Sunnification and set sectarian conflict ablaze.
A series of deadly by both Sectarian groups in Pakistan added more victims to the estimated 16,000 killed over 28 years of sporadic sectarian violence. In Lebanon, a row into running street battles between followers of rival Sunni and Shia parties;. The preacher at a slain Sunni youth's funeral described him as a martyr to Arabisma subtle jibe at the ostensibly Persian Shias and their leading party in Lebanon, Hizbullah
Rivalry that is coming out of Iraq between the Shias and Sunnis, which, as it becomes deeper and more violent, its reverberations are going to become louder in the region. The second is that it coincides with the rise of Iran as a major power in the region
Stand-off and the occupation of three UAE islands by Iran. Bahraini officials accuse Iran of interfering in the elections by bankrolling Shia parties and even giving some factions arms training - claims strongly denied by Tehran.
Shias, who make up 60 per cent of the population of the kingdom, protest that they are economically underprivileged and have long been sidelined from the political process.
Government officials pointed out that the Shia party had targeted just the constituencies where it had a power base and had run a sectarian campaign. Steadily rising tensions on an island squeezed between the competing influences of Iran and Saudi Arabia, with close ties to Iraq and income disparities that coincide with a deepening sectarian divide.
Religious conflict between radical Shia tribes, and pro-al Qaeda Sunni Yemenis. There is also an ongoing insurrection by followers of a Shia religious leader. The Shia of Yemen are not mainstream Shia, but a sect called the Zaydis. There are some five million of these Shia in Yemen, and they dominate the northern part of the country.
In nearby Saudi Arabia, Shia are considered heretics. The bin Laden family are Sunnis from Yemen, and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda was brutal in its persecution of Shias . Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shia cleric, raised the temperature by accusing Yemen of trying to extinguish its Shia community
Yemeni al-Qaeda cell spokesman Ahmad Mansour has said that the government asked it to fight a Shia rebel group in the North of the country, local newspaper al-Wasat reported
Shia-Sunni strife inside of Afghanistan has mainly been a function of the puritanical Sunni Taliban's clashes with Shia Afghans, primarily the Hazara ethnic group. Assisting the Taliban in the murder of Iranian diplomatic and intelligence officials at the Iranian Consulate in Mazar Sharif bring the Talbian and Iran at the brink of war. So Iran support to Northern Alliance in Afghanistan is become more dangerous for two sects to coexist. Thousand Sunni prisoners were killed in Mazar Sharif by northern alliance in 2002 backed by Iran in revenge of killing of Iranian diplomatic after US led victory.
The Hama massacre occurred on February 2, 1982 when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. An estimated 7,000 to 25,000 people were killed, including about 1,000 soldiers. In Syria new war started between Sunni and Shia after Al-Qaeda main recruiting center (Muslim Brotherhood) in Syria.
Saudi Arabia and turkey will try to change regime in Syria if Syria did not stop interference in Lebanon and destabilizing Sunni government , this will be most dangerous move through Muslim brotherhood Sunni party.
Occupied Palestinian Territories Pop: 2.8 million Sunni: 98% Shia: less than 1%. Failure to form unity government has led to fighting between Sunni Islamic Hamas and secular Fatah, prompting fears of civil war in Gaza. Violence is not sectarian: Iran bankrolls Hamas, while the US supports the Fatah leader and president, Mahmoud Abbas.but a dangerous escalation by Iran to break the Saudi led truce between Fatah and Hamas.
Conculsion
The choice before us today is whether we keep fighting this 14-centuries old battle or desist from it and make peace in order to be free to focus on other challenges and goals that may be more relevant for the times we live in.
A great deal of money and effort has been spent in the last few years to fan the fire of hatred between Shias and Sunnis in the Persian Gulf region, with obvious political and economic fruits for the powers-to-be. must stop.
The policy of divide and rule is as old as the Roman Empire a constant guide to the Christian West and implemented ruthlessly during its colonial onslaught on the rest of the world, now same tactics is playing against Muslims
Saudi Arabia,UAE, Kuwait stop funding the Sunni militias in different Muslims sates against Shia community and other side Iran ,Syria stop funding the Shia militias .Both parties has to sit on the table and resolve their difference .Do not weak the Muslim community around the globe .
If the US left Iraq "one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shia militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis".
The consensus in both Sunni and Shia circles appears to be that attempts to emphasise Sunni- Shia rivalries are intended to deflect attention from both the US occupation of Iraq Afghanistan and continuing Israeli aggression
If Saudi Arabia arms and aids Iraqi Sunnis in a civil war with Shiite militias, both sides will be firing American bullets. they has to think where Iran and Saudi are heading the Muslim umma
Saudi Arabia and Iran led regional countries in overcoming the Middle East's bloody history to forge a future of peace and prosperity for all.
"Most of them are aware that those who fuel the fire of civil war will be burned by it too."
Syria and Iran survival will be hard if Civil war erupted in Iraq and Lebanon on the basic of sunni and shia.
Usman karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com
Muslim umma a trial of strength for the outsider forces
The disagreement over who should be the Caliphate (Ali or Othman), had led to a split within the Muslim world and created the Shia creed. It goes without saying that both creeds believe in God and Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him). Like Protestants and Catholics in Christianity, Sunnis and Shias are the main sects or branches of the Muslim community, and they share the core beliefs and practices of Islam
The Arab world has gone through pure religious disputes as well as political conflicts disguised in religious clothing and it really turning the (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Plastine, Yemen) a new battle Ground for their created hatred. The government and security agencies are now a Playground for Shia militias in Iraq, other side of the new official order, as was the case with the Sunni militias emerged.
The region fell prey to a similar bout of sectarian fever during the first Gulf War between Iraq and Iran
"From inside Pakistan's border to the Mediterranean, almost every land (Muslim) is in crisis. Suddenly, all the Western talk of a Sunni-Shia war looks troublingly real". Its shameful for the society to indulge in sectarian riots and then blame it on others despite the sects living almost together for hundreds of years
Iran stands for Shia power and Saudi Arabia and the Arab world essentially represent the Sunni face of Islam and each has struggles within between radicals and moderates. They all read the same Quran but they dont agree on interpretation of a single page of it
King Abdullah of Jordan warned that a "Shia crescent" was being established across the region. He was referring to the growing influence of Iran in Iraq, Iran's support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the strong alliance between Tehran and Syria.
The envoy suggested that any attempt by Hezbollah to take over the Lebanese capital would be dealt with in the same way as if the Saudi capital itself had been attacked. The threat had an instant effect, with a call from the Iranian ambassador in Beirut to the leader of Hezbollah to end the confrontation. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, has been more outspoken, calling on Tehran to stop interfering and urging it to "become part of the solution, not part of the problems of our world".
New Statesman - Sunni v Shia
The clash between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the Arab world is already the greatest single cause of strife around the globe. It is taking place within countries and between countries. It has been brewing for years, but only now do governments appreciate the dangers
Sunni jihadist militants outmaneuvered the Iranians in championing militant Islamism. That Battle of Islamic Fundamentalisms, it, was won by Sunnis, far beyond the American godfather's expectations: The Afghan jihad was Osama bin Laden's training ground. As Washington had backed Sunnis against (revolutionary) Shias in the 1980s and 1990s, so it would play Shias against (jihadi) Sunnis after September 11.
The US and Iran are often on the same side, fighting Sunni and Salafist forces. Iran and the US both supported the Northern Alliance, which defeated the Taliban and both countries support the Shia-led government in Iraq and both want to see the radical Sunni Salafists defeated. Strategically, from US and Israel, this rift can become their biggest weapon
The neo cold war (verbal war) in the Middle-East is actually between Saudi and Iran, with the former backed by USA.
The best barometer for how far Iraq is better is the willingness of the 4.7 million refugees, one in five Iraqis who have fled their homes and are now living inside or outside Iraq, to go home. By Jan 2009 only 150,000 had returned and some do so only to look at the situation and then go back to Damascus or Amman. There are 10 million Refugees in Pakistan from Afghanistan, and more are coming due to war situation there hardly any Sunni population left in Northern alliance areas (Shia majority)
This important Arab country has become Shia, as a consequence of American intervention. It is the very first Shia Arab country. United States was to facilitate transfer of power from one sect to the other. Iraqi ayatollah, Ayatollah Sistani, came out with a very simple mantra, "one man, one vote," there are estimates by the U.S. government that last year there was over $3 billion of contributions made to Ayatollah Sistani by Shiites, all the way from the United States and Europe to India for shia creed http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/shia-revival-how-conflicts-within-
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has stirred up sectarian tensions well beyond Iraqs borders and destroyed the regional balance of power that had existed between a theocratic, Shia-led Iran and the secular, Sunni-led regime of Saddam Hussein from Middle east to Afghanistan and Pakistan
When the "Lancet study" (that is, the Johns Hopkins study) estimated two years ago that 600,000 Iraqis had died." Due to sectarian violence in Iraq
The rampant sectarian violence is Shiite militia and their "death squads" that have powerful backing from political parties in the Shiite-dominated government.
Mahdi Army, one main Shiite militia which is loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, controls at least 30 seats in the 275-member parliament. The other major Shiite militia, known as the Badr Organization, is affiliated to Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the country's single most powerful political party.
According to one estimate, as of early Jan 2009, 1,321 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq Sunni insurgent organizations include Ansar al-Islam. Radical groups include Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, Jeish al-Taiifa al-Mansoura, Jeish Muhammad, and Black Banner Organization.
According to the British television Channel 4, from 2005 through early 2006, commandos of the Ministry of the Interior which is controlled by the Badr Organization, and who are almost exclusively Shia Muslims - have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians
Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr, has admitted death squads and other unauthorised armed groups have been carrying out sectarian killings in the country. In a BBC interview on April 11 2006, he denied these groups were his responsibility. He added that there are non-governmental armed groups called the Facility Protection Service, set up in 2003 by the U.S. occupation, which number 150,000 effectives. These 150,000 hired guns are "out of order, not under our control," along with another 30,000 private security guards, Jabr said.
Militia-dominated government death squads were reportedly "torturing to death or summarily" executing "hundreds" of Sunnis "every month in Baghdad alone," many arrested at random. these commandos [ Badr Organization militiamen controlling the Ministry of the Interior] - who are almost exclusively Shia Muslims - have been implicated in rounding up and killing thousands of ordinary Sunni civilians"Channel 4 program Dispatches
Even more pessimistically, analysts and think tanks said Iraq's conflict was even worse than "civil war", because it "suffers from at least four internal conflicts -- a Shiite-Sunni civil war in the center, intra-Shiite conflicts in the south, a Sunni insurgency in the west and ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds in the north.
The process of "debaathification" of Iraqi society, which removed significant obstacles to the Shia's assumption of power, is seen as an important cause of the ongoing Sunni insurgency. Now the Sunni backlash has began to spread far beyond Iraq's borders - from Syria to Pakistan - raising the specter of a broader struggle for power between the two groups that could threaten stability in the region. To avoid this will require satisfying Shia demands while placating Sunni anger and alleviating Sunni anxiety in Iraq and throughout the region.
Shia power in Iraq and Afghanistan has tilted the Shia-Sunni balance toward a fairer distribution of forces and that Shias need to continue leaning toward the West, lest they again lose ground to their Sunni adversaries.
Perhaps the gravest of America's mistakes in Iraq was its dismantlement of Iraq's governing institutions and army, creating an enormous power vacuum
Sunni-Shia tensions thus began when it was construed that the destruction of the old meant the destruction of "Sunni power" in favour of the rise of "Shia power".
The dismantlement of the Baathist edifices of government was quickly filled with sectarian militias that embarked on the worst spree of ethnic cleansing crimes in the modern history of Iraq.
American way of bulldozing the past entirely was not just a tactical error but a crime against Iraq and its people, external actors, including the, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran will destroy the Taif Agreement in Lebanon.
In Lebanon, where Muslims are half of the population, with slight Shia majority, the actual rift is between Hezbollah and anti-Syrian Lebanon Govt. The Lebanon Govt is backed by the Christians and Sunnis along with Saudi and USA while the opposition Shias are backed by Iran and Syria. It is actually a trial of strength for the outsider forces
The death of Hariri Lebanonized the Sunna. The growing influence of Sunni Islamists in Lebanon is fueled by rising anti-American and sectarian sentiments resulting from the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq Afghanistan with Iranian help and Syria , Lebanons ongoing political stalemate, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, and the summer 2006 war in which Israel devastated large parts of Lebanon. While mainstream Islamist groups continue to dominate the political and social environment in Lebanon
Shii-Sunni tensions reached an unprecedented peak in January 2007, when supporters of Hizbollah and the Amal Movement (another prominent Shi movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri) clashed with Hariris Mustaqbal supporters in violent scenes that reminded the Lebanese of the civil war days. Many Sunni Islamists make no secret of their anti-Syrian sentiments.
But the estimates are that they are about 10-to-15 percent of the Muslim world, which puts them somewhere between 165-to-190 million people.Only Iran is overwhelmingly Shia, where they form 85 per cent of the population. Across the Persian Gulf, the littoral states with significant proportions of Shia include Kuwait, with 30 per cent of its population,
Bahrain with 65 per cent, Saudi Arabia with 10 per cent, Qatar with 16 per cent and the United Arab Emirates with just 6 per cent. Approximately half of all Shia live in the arc beginning in Lebanon, with 30 per cent of its population being Shia, and ranging through Iraq with 60 per cent, Azerbaijan with 75 per cent, Afghanistan with 20 per cent to Pakistan, also with some 10 -15 per cent. Yemen with 15-30% are shia population
In Syria, the ruling elite is Alawite, a Shia- affiliated group with just 15 per cent of the country's people. Alawite domination has bred deep resentment among many of Syria's Sunni Muslims who constitute 70 per cent of the population. Uprisings by Sunni Islamists in the early 1980s were partly fuelled by this sectarian divide
Sunni was dominant form of Islam in most part of Iran from the beginning until rise of Safavids Empire. According to Mortaza Motahhari the majority of Iranian scholars and masses remained Sunni till the time of the Safawids
Currently, Iraq has three major groups holding sway separately, with Sunni Arabs Controlling mostly west and middle provinces, Shiites in south and Kurds in north
Last national election in January 2005 was wracked by insurgency and Shiite-Sunni conflict that nearly plunged the country into full-scale civil war. Sunni candidates consequently marginalized themselves, and enabled a disproportionate share of power, with Shiites and Kurds controlling seats even in provinces with big Sunni communities.
In November 2006, "sectarian violence" became a commonly used phrase by the Bush Administration in place of the term "civil war" when referring to the war in Iraq. ...
Ethno-sectarian division, Iraqs politics are further fractured by disagreements between centralizers and de-centralizers. Sadrs Mahdi Army militia and ISCI-controlled local security forces have already fought pitched battles for control across southern Iraq
The latest statements by the leading Sunni scholar, Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi, warning of Shia's attempts to do missionary work in the Sunni world triggered massive outrage among Shia circles. In a turn for the worse, a group of Sunni symbols followed suit while hackers attacked Shia Internet websites including that of Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and Ayatollah Khomeini along with 77 Shia websites.
Shia retaliated by hacking some 900 Sunni websites, particularly those close to the Wahabi current including the mufti of Saudi Arabia and a group of prominent Saudi scholars. Such confrontation is really alarming, Al-Ahram Center for Political & Strategic Studies
Three relevant phases of Shia ascendance could be traced. The first started with the triumph of the Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. Iran then embraced the strategy of exporting the Revolution to neighboring societies.
The second phase followed the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, when Shia became the hegemonic political group. This situation had an impact on the Shia of neighbouring Gulf countries and the rest of the world.
The third phase was marked by the Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006. As Hizbullah emerged victorious, a euphoria expressing admiration and respect to its courage and military might swept the region.
Some observers propose that the US and Israel used this situation to drive a wedge between Sunni and Shia Muslims via magnifying the threat of the alleged Shia invasion of Sunni community
Its shameful for the society to indulge in secreterian riots and then blame it on others despite the sects living almost together for hundreds of years.War in Iraq was not a purely military and political operation, it is social thrust
The tearing down of the old in Iraq, indeed, a breeze. It was building a new where the problems began to set the country on the precipitous slope to a civil war that will be bloodier and more destructive than the protracted Lebanese civil war. The hostilities between the parties pitted against each other in this war result of many causes, not among which are the regional maps that Israel and the US drew up decades ago, or any number of "conspiracies",
The Western wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been crucial factors in shaping the
Debate among Islamists inside the country and in providing them with ammunition
To advance their agenda in so far as it appears to confirm their worst fears of a Western campaign against Islam and Muslims. Some three quarters of the 17,000 prisoners held by the Americans are Sunni in Iraq, who will be mercy of Badr militia after US troops withdraw from Iraq in July 2009
In Bahrain, ruled by a Sunni royal family, Shia uneasiness has led to a strong protest movement. In both countries, after socialism and nationalism had their heyday among the Shias until the late 1970s, and after the Iranian Revolution became a magnet in the 1980s, Gulf Arab Shias increasingly turned for guidance toward Najaf-based Ayatollah Sistani, whom they consider their authoritative marja'
Ahmadinejad, elected in the summer of 2005, and Iran's potential influence on Arab Shia networks. Both the Badr and the Sadr movements in Iraq, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tareeka jafaria, Spiha Mohammed in Pakistan, Bharian, Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, Zaydis tribe in Yemen receive Iranian funds, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has played a central role in training and equipping their paramilitary.espically in Khrumm Agency in Pakistan Iranian Revolunairy Guard fight a pitch battle along Shia Turi tribe against Taliban led Bangesh tribe (Sunni)
The great majority of Pakistan's Muslims are Sunni. Shias form about 15%. Violence between the two communities dates back to the 1980s.In Pakistan, Shias also played a key political role. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, its ill-fated prime minister, were both Shias, Feeling the wind shift in the 1990s, Benazir styled herself a Sunni, but her Iranian mother, her husband from a big Shia landowning family 2009 currently President Asif Ali Zardari is Shias too. Though the more numerous Sunnis eventually brushed Shia influence aside. In the 1980s, under General Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan turned toward a politics of Islamization that was tantamount to Sunnification and set sectarian conflict ablaze.
A series of deadly by both Sectarian groups in Pakistan added more victims to the estimated 16,000 killed over 28 years of sporadic sectarian violence. In Lebanon, a row into running street battles between followers of rival Sunni and Shia parties;. The preacher at a slain Sunni youth's funeral described him as a martyr to Arabisma subtle jibe at the ostensibly Persian Shias and their leading party in Lebanon, Hizbullah
Rivalry that is coming out of Iraq between the Shias and Sunnis, which, as it becomes deeper and more violent, its reverberations are going to become louder in the region. The second is that it coincides with the rise of Iran as a major power in the region
Stand-off and the occupation of three UAE islands by Iran. Bahraini officials accuse Iran of interfering in the elections by bankrolling Shia parties and even giving some factions arms training - claims strongly denied by Tehran.
Shias, who make up 60 per cent of the population of the kingdom, protest that they are economically underprivileged and have long been sidelined from the political process.
Government officials pointed out that the Shia party had targeted just the constituencies where it had a power base and had run a sectarian campaign. Steadily rising tensions on an island squeezed between the competing influences of Iran and Saudi Arabia, with close ties to Iraq and income disparities that coincide with a deepening sectarian divide.
Religious conflict between radical Shia tribes, and pro-al Qaeda Sunni Yemenis. There is also an ongoing insurrection by followers of a Shia religious leader. The Shia of Yemen are not mainstream Shia, but a sect called the Zaydis. There are some five million of these Shia in Yemen, and they dominate the northern part of the country.
In nearby Saudi Arabia, Shia are considered heretics. The bin Laden family are Sunnis from Yemen, and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda was brutal in its persecution of Shias . Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's leading Shia cleric, raised the temperature by accusing Yemen of trying to extinguish its Shia community
Yemeni al-Qaeda cell spokesman Ahmad Mansour has said that the government asked it to fight a Shia rebel group in the North of the country, local newspaper al-Wasat reported
Shia-Sunni strife inside of Afghanistan has mainly been a function of the puritanical Sunni Taliban's clashes with Shia Afghans, primarily the Hazara ethnic group. Assisting the Taliban in the murder of Iranian diplomatic and intelligence officials at the Iranian Consulate in Mazar Sharif bring the Talbian and Iran at the brink of war. So Iran support to Northern Alliance in Afghanistan is become more dangerous for two sects to coexist. Thousand Sunni prisoners were killed in Mazar Sharif by northern alliance in 2002 backed by Iran in revenge of killing of Iranian diplomatic after US led victory.
The Hama massacre occurred on February 2, 1982 when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. An estimated 7,000 to 25,000 people were killed, including about 1,000 soldiers. In Syria new war started between Sunni and Shia after Al-Qaeda main recruiting center (Muslim Brotherhood) in Syria.
Saudi Arabia and turkey will try to change regime in Syria if Syria did not stop interference in Lebanon and destabilizing Sunni government , this will be most dangerous move through Muslim brotherhood Sunni party.
Occupied Palestinian Territories Pop: 2.8 million Sunni: 98% Shia: less than 1%. Failure to form unity government has led to fighting between Sunni Islamic Hamas and secular Fatah, prompting fears of civil war in Gaza. Violence is not sectarian: Iran bankrolls Hamas, while the US supports the Fatah leader and president, Mahmoud Abbas.but a dangerous escalation by Iran to break the Saudi led truce between Fatah and Hamas.
Conculsion
The choice before us today is whether we keep fighting this 14-centuries old battle or desist from it and make peace in order to be free to focus on other challenges and goals that may be more relevant for the times we live in.
A great deal of money and effort has been spent in the last few years to fan the fire of hatred between Shias and Sunnis in the Persian Gulf region, with obvious political and economic fruits for the powers-to-be. must stop.
The policy of divide and rule is as old as the Roman Empire a constant guide to the Christian West and implemented ruthlessly during its colonial onslaught on the rest of the world, now same tactics is playing against Muslims
Saudi Arabia,UAE, Kuwait stop funding the Sunni militias in different Muslims sates against Shia community and other side Iran ,Syria stop funding the Shia militias .Both parties has to sit on the table and resolve their difference .Do not weak the Muslim community around the globe .
If the US left Iraq "one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shia militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis".
The consensus in both Sunni and Shia circles appears to be that attempts to emphasise Sunni- Shia rivalries are intended to deflect attention from both the US occupation of Iraq Afghanistan and continuing Israeli aggression
If Saudi Arabia arms and aids Iraqi Sunnis in a civil war with Shiite militias, both sides will be firing American bullets. they has to think where Iran and Saudi are heading the Muslim umma
Saudi Arabia and Iran led regional countries in overcoming the Middle East's bloody history to forge a future of peace and prosperity for all.
"Most of them are aware that those who fuel the fire of civil war will be burned by it too."
Syria and Iran survival will be hard if Civil war erupted in Iraq and Lebanon on the basic of sunni and shia.
Usman karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com
