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The Saudi conflict of Shia and Sunni extends beyond the borders of the kingdom because of international Saudi "Petro-Islam" influence. Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who—though primarily targeting the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979—also ...
The Bahraini government has reportedly imported Sunnis from Pakistan and Syria in an attempt to increase the Sunni percentage. [1] [2] Shiite Muslims are blocked from serving in important political and military posts. [2] Sunnis and Shia often stress that, no matter what their denomination, they are all Bahrainis first and foremost.
While all Islamic schools and branches of Islam recognise the Qur'an, they differ in which other authorities they acknowledge; in particular the question of the Succession to Muhammad separates the Sunni, who acknowledge the elected Rashidun Caliphs and their descendants, from the Shia, who acknowledge the Imams or descendants of Muhammad; these two branches are then subdivided by their views ...
Having a mixed Sunni-Shi'i background, General Abd al-Karim Qasim abolished the practice of limiting Shi'ites and peoples with other ethnic backgrounds into the military. Although this measure made him partly popular, sectarian tensions with the Kurdish population of Iraq developed into a violent conflict which started in 1961 after Qassim was ...
Bashar al-Assad's strategy of importing Iran-backed Shia fundamentalists engaged in regional conflict with Sunni-majority countries and his portrayal as being the sole defender of Alawite interests from the Syrian Sunni majority; led to the transformation of the conflict into a sectarian war by late 2013. [12]
Sunni and Shia Muslims are in conflict in the region over a dispute over land. [6] Half of the population of the Kurram region are Shia Muslims, while the majority of Pakistan are Sunni Muslims. [ 4 ]
The Iraqi civil war, also known as the First Iraqi Civil War, was an armed conflict from 2006 to 2008 between various sectarian Shia and Sunni armed groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Mahdi Army, in addition to the Iraqi government alongside American-led coalition forces.
Where Iranians saw their revolution as righting of injustice, Sunnis saw mostly "Shia mischief" and a challenge to Sunni political and cultural dominance. [83] There was a coup attempt in Bahrain in 1981, terrorist plots in Kuwait in 1983 and 1984. [84] "What followed was a Sunni-versus-Shia contest for dominance, and it grew intense." [85]