Al-Qaeda majority Sunni or Shiite?

What really matters is that they're all Islamofascists, and are our enemies. They don't want to live in peace, they want to either fight themselves, the Jews, the Americans, etc.

One thing that we have to keep in mind is that all the groups that used to rule Iraq prior to Saddam are now trying to find a place within the control of the Iraqi sectarian divisions since the US invasion.

The fights as somebody has said before are not limited to one sect against the other one, but also within its own ranks.

It is believe that many groups of leaders that used to be part of the Iraqi culture and religious believes were exile during Saddam because they had no place in their radical views with the ones that Saddam was fond off, he was the leader and not one else could have any control of any areas in any way, meaning religious or other.

Now most of these people are back to reclaim their holds and to gather as much followers and supporters as they can.

Just because we believe, Sunnis are killing Shiite and Shiite-killing Sunnis it doesn’t mean that they are all united within their own groups and having power struggles between their own sectarian peers.

Under Saddam, none of these groups was allow to proliferate.

This is one of the most interesting threads in ages.
After much thought some of it on topic and some of it off topic the only thing I can say that makes sense is this.

A common mistake seems to be applying Western thinking to the Middle East. While Western culture as spread around the globe it can only make modifications rather then wholesale changes to other cultures.

So of course this problem can be applied to Al-Qadea. Any group of people can be united when there is a common cause of course a unique person or group of people is required. Of course once the common cause is gone normal service resumes.
I apologize for the general nature of this post in quite a specific topic.

Originally posted by southern_cross3
What really matters is that they're all Islamofascists, and are our enemies. They don't want to live in peace, they want to either fight themselves, the Jews, the Americans, etc.

what an ignoramous you are. how do you know they don't want to live in peace it is the USA and Britain invaded their country and are fighting them, the americans have started this bogus "WAR ON TERROR", Bush even described himself as a WAR-PRESIDENT. It is the american regime who wants to fight everyone, and in doing so those in control make billions of dollars in sales of armaments

I agree this is an excellent idea for a discussion, and kudos to all the contributors.

I would like to hear more on the differences between the Sunnis and Shiites as well as the Kurds.

My thoughts are that Shiites even though they were the majority were ruled by the Sunnis and I believe this is part of the reason for the sectarian violence that is happening now. Correct me if I’m wrong, but basically they are getting some payback as well as grabbing for power and doing ethnic cleansing. Our troops are unable to keep this from happening because they are not allowed to patrol in Sadr City which is where most of the violence is happening. This request to stay out of Sadr City was by al-Maliki (supported by al-Sadr) and the Iraqi government.

So my question is, how can our troops fix any problem over there if they are not allowed to do what is needed? I think now we are just prolonging the inevitable. I would like to see a solution here, but it is out of our hands at this point, and they will have to work this out themselves.

I think one solution is to divide up the country into three parts for the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. I know it would be difficult, but I think in the long run, it will keep them from killing each other. Does this sound like a good idea, or not?

Lol. if they wanted peace they would not kill each other over their religion and who the leader was in medieval times a thousand years ago.

Do you see Arian Christian activists attacking Catholic churchs because they deemed Arius a heretic at the Nicene creed during the 3rd century A.D.? Precisely. No, im not talking about aryan .. its arian, look it up.

Sunni and Shia will work together. Dont you doubt that for a second. Not in Iraq so much, at the moment, but regionally they will play strategies that include Sunni and Shia countries working together (Strategic Alliance - Syria & Iran).

Personally, I've read up on the history of Islam and feel that the Shia are the rightful sect, because they wanted to go by blood relatives. The first dynasty, the Fatimid dynasty, named after Mohammed's only direct surviving child whom was a daughter named Fatima. She married a man and had children. This is where Ali the assassinated one came from, the 4th Caliph. The Shia are the successors to the Fatimids, and Mohammed's "blood people". The Sunni must cease shedding so much blood because it's just going to bring more rightous punishment down upon them causing destruction and death like we've seen in recent years in their communities. The terrorism/sunni insurgency will inevitbly destroy the traditional Sunni communities in Iraq. I see nothing but more death for the ill-advised 'warriors of God', who are really warriors of Death and Satan because all they do is blow-up their innocent brothers, the blood people of Mohammad, their prophet! Shame on them .. in my opinion.

The Fatimid was the 1st, and personally I think the first is always closest to the true idea in the religion. For example = Christianity didn't get all weird with dead flesh worship and idol worship of dead Jesus's pinned up in front of the congregation and such until Catholicism, a human doctrine, introduced the concept of his extreme suffering, and theologically dwelt on the suffering until they came up with their Sect.

Like the 'Trinity' .. the Trinity is the reason the Muslims call Christians polytheists sometimes and justify killing them. They say recognizing 3 entities of God that can split and come back together to form a whole is worshipping multiple deities and idols (Gods that aint real), some of the worst offenses punishable by beheading after torture. I personally don't agree with the idea of the Trinity. I've felt the 'presence of God' before and while it was invigorating, it was not a completely split-off entity called the 'Holy Spirit' coming to visit me -- it was the Omnipotent One Single God himself. If there was a universal word for ONE, in all of the universe, that would be God's name. I'm going off topic here. But wait, I'd think the digit "1" would be a good representor for God universal, don't you?

I'll end with this: Isn't it funny that both muslim sects recognize Jesus(Isa) as a major prophet, probably second to Mohammad? Their end times prophecies clearly state from the Quran and Hadith that Jesus will return with the Mahdi and restore justice to the world for the believers and destroy all the evil forces ala armageddon. I just think the muslims might end up being the 'evil forces' themselves if they do not curb their bloodletting of the martys. Then Jesus 'destroys the cross' and introduces worldwide Islam. Babylon the Great.. DRUNK WITH THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS..

How fitting an analogy considering Baghdad = Babylon in this case. I don't know about you, but it sounds like a ploy for World Domination to me.



[edit on 12/13/2006 by runetang]

Hal9000
Our troops are unable to keep this from happening because they are not allowed to patrol in Sadr City which is where most of the violence is happening. This request to stay out of Sadr City was by al-Maliki

[
The thing is, long before maliki was in power, or before there was even an independant iraqi government, the US was clashing with the Mahdi Army. Pretty constantly too. But we never took him out or hit the organization real hard. Even after he agreed to stop attacking the US, and then broke the agreement and continued to attack. For some odd reason, we've been allowing him to exist and act as a militia leader. It has nothing to do with maliki, we simply decided that we wouldn't destroy him. Our troops can't really deal with him because of our government.

Originally posted by runetang
Lol. if they wanted peace they would not kill each other over their religion and who the leader was in medieval times a thousand years ago.

Do you see Arian Christian activists attacking Catholic churchs because they deemed Arius a heretic at the Nicene creed during the 3rd century A.D.? Precisely.

Thats because the catholics exterminated the arians. THe sunni and shia are trying to exterminate one another. There are other muslim sects that have been wiped out or suppressed greatly over time. And to this day we still have incredible animosity between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches. They're not bombing each other, today, but then agian, most people in europe in general aren't resorting to violence. Thats because they have stable economies and live in responsive liberal representative democracies. The middle east doesn't have any of that. If europe didn't have that, then europe'd be resorting to wanton internal violence.

Sunni and Shia will work together. Dont you doubt that for a second. Not in Iraq so much, at the moment, but regionally they will play strategies that include Sunni and Shia countries working together (Strategic Alliance - Syria & Iran).

The syrian government is not shia, its alawis, and its also a secular baathist government. They're not engaged in open warfare against one another right now, but that isn't saying much. And the syrian government will simply exterminate any radical shi'ite iran backed groups that try to infiltrate syria. THey've done it before in recent times, and they'll do it again. Similarly, the Iranian government will crush any attempts at a nationalist secular government, like that of teh Ba'ath party.


The Shia and SUnni will not work together, in the long or the short term. The sunni beleive that the shia are, quite simply, heretics, who are the dupes of satan, and thus evil, and are trying to destroy the sunnis.

Al-qaida in Iraq isn't working with the Mahdi Army, for example. They Al-qaida in Iraq is targeting and killing, en mass, shias. The Mahdi Army and Badr Brigades are shi'ite death squads, they are targetting sunnis. They are not uniting against the United States. There are small scale attacks against US Troops in iraq, both from the Shia and Sunni. But there is no group that is both shia and sunni and actively working against the US. I have no doubt that sometimes some of the militia commanders from different groups work together a little bit. BUt they all know that once the US leaves, its going to be a battle royale between the shia militias and the sunni militias. Whoever wins is then going to try to crush the kurdish peshmerga.

Personally, I've read up on the history of Islam and feel that the Shia are the rightful sect, because they wanted to go by blood relatives.

Its really irrelevant at this point. The differences were origianlly partisan political differences. That political split lead to isolation between the two, and they've grown to become extremely different. Besides, there is no longer anyone that can seriously make a claim at being a worthy descendant of Mohammed,and there is no longer a position of global Caliph.

Also, why does it matter if the successor is a blood relative of Mohammed? Mohammed was just a man, not a god. His blood isn't divine, he was a great prophet. That doesn't mean that his children, and grandchildren, down through the ages, are also great prophets. Indeed, the entire idea behind islam is that mohammed was the last prophet. Theres no reason why his relatives should be the community leaders. The sunni idea is that the leaders amoung the people should get together, debate, and select a person that is capable, just, competent, and pious, to lead them all.
The shia idea was that it should be the relatives of Mohammed and Ali, irrespective of their capabilities.
Also, notice, the shia, their theology is a little more polytheistic than the sunni. They greatly revere Ali, who wasn't even a prophet, and his martyrd sons. They put great emphasis on the Saints and their holy men. And its from the shia branch of islam that we've seen the hiding places for most of the crypto-pagans, and the revival of older, paganistic practices, like witchcraft. The shia branch has been split and rammified so many times, whereas the sunni branch hasn't, it has collection of sects, that are still thoroughly sunni.
So you can see that the sunnis would object to the shia, as a 'slide down the slippery slope' to outright paganism, especially when the iranian kings started using the shia sect to exert their control from outside of the usual islamic system.

Of course, the shia consider the sunnis to have betrayed the lineage of mohammed and the religion itself too. But neither is really 'right'. When the Great Schism in Christendom occured, you couldn't really say that the Orthodox were 'correct', and that the Catholic were 'incorrect'. Its utterly subjective.

The Shia are the successors to the Fatimids, and Mohammed's "blood people".

The shia are largely non-arab central asian converts to islam.

because all they do is blow-up their innocent brothers, the blood people of Mohammad, their prophet! Shame on them .. in my opinion.

The sunni are hardly the only muslims attacking other muslims. The shia are just as viscious and violent.

Christianity didn't get all weird with dead flesh worship and idol worship of dead Jesus's pinned up in front of the congregation and such until Catholicism, a human doctrine, introduced the concept of his extreme suffering, and theologically dwelt on the suffering until they came up with their Sect.

Thats utterly false. The ideas within the catholic church long predate the establishment of the church. And certainly, the greek orthodox church didn't pick up these ideas because they were in the catholic church.

The history of the area is incredibly interesting, for people that care to know why the middle east is the way it is.

Thanks Nydgan for bringing the information.

Right now the power players of the raise of militia Shiites in Iraq after Sunni lost their leader and Al-qaida support is Iran.

Taking into consideration that they dominate the government and also the police and military Sunnis are in a bad position to actually be exterminated.

Saudi Arabia knows that and it can not let this happen right now Saudi is finding itself in a position like I say before to call upon the other countries that still have Sunni majority to support Sunnis in Iraq even if they do not like Al-qaida.

Official: Saudis to back Sunnis if U.S. leaves Iraq

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back the Sunnis if the United States pulls out of Iraq, according to a senior American official.

I wonder if we may see a Territorial fight between Iran/Syria Shiites against, Saudi/Egypt/Jordan and others Sunnis.

www.cnn.com...

Like I say a while back on another thread Cheney visit to Saudi was to find support for Iraq because the possible diplomatic links with Iran.

The situation will be more complicated that we may think between the supporters of each sect in Iraq.

But I wonder if Al-qaida will be against Hezbollah if they find themselves in a position to fight each other.

Can that be possible?

No, golddragnet, you're the ignoramus, simply for calling me one first, if not for any other reason. I take it you're still in high school. Ah, those were the days . . .

Anyway, it seems clear to me that they aren't willing to remain peaceful, because even without U.S. involvement they're still warring about. Islamofascists attacked America on September 11th, without provocation. What did we do wrong? Perhaps paying doubled prices for barrels of oil wasn't quite enough?

Let's take the U.S. out of the equation. No more U.S. forces in the Middle East, at all. Using your logic, they would all live in peace. Perhaps, right after they annihilated Israel, along with other despised ethnic groups like the Kurds. And then the Sunnis and Shi'ites would fight for power. Etc, etc, etc. It is a region prone to violence, and our presence there may aggravate it, but removing the presence certainly wouldn't eliminate the violence.

One thing that has been touched on is why people perceive Al-Qaeda , Sunni and Shiite situation. Two things seem to be linked to peoples perceptions. The first is a persons political beliefs its worth noting that Western governments have been backstabbing and interfering in the region since 1919. If you want more info on how peoples political beliefs effect there perceptions take a wonder over to PTS.

The media also plays a big part in how many people form there opinions.
The media seem to present the idea that that the Sunni and Shiite conflict only irised after the coalition occupied Iraq. This is at best a half truth the conflict has been raging for thousands of years. Iraq has become the heart of the conflict and in effect a different bunch of lunatics are running the asylum.

AQ is primarily Sunni with various Wahabbi, Takfir wal-Hijra, and Salafi Muslims sprinkled in for good measure, with most of the Takfirs coming from Egypt with Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood when it merged with AQ. Quite a potent batch of radical anti-western Muslim thought when you look at it, especially the Takfirs, who are against almost everybody.

Al-qaida certainly is in opposition to the US, but not all muslims are

Not all, but most. And for good reason.

Originally posted by southern_cross3
Islamofascists attacked America on September 11th, without provocation.

It is a region prone to violence

No they didn't, that was the CIA and elements within your own government.

It is hypocritical for americans to talk about the Iraq's being prone to violence. USA has taken military action in many countries since in the last 60 years, and USA is talking about taking action against Iran next. USA is more prone to violence than anyone. And if you need any further evidence just compare the numbers of gun-crimes within USA compared to every other nation on the planet.