Saudi Arabia - joining the dots

A series of blog entries exploring Saudi Arabia's role in the oil markets with a brief look at the history of the royal family and politics that dictate and influence the Kingdom's oil policy

AIM - Assets In Market

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Iran negotiations - is the end nigh?

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Yemen: The Islamic Chessboard?

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Acquisition Criteria

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Valuation Series

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Showing posts with label ISIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISIS. Show all posts

Sunday 29 June 2014

ISIS: Sectarian furies unleashed again




The recent events in Iraq is a continuation of a rift between Sunni and Shias that began over a thousand years ago
  • Shias believed Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad should take over the leadership upon his death
  • Sunnis believed the Muslim community should determine the new leadership by consensus
  • Ali became the new leader, but upon his assassination in 661, war broke out between the two groups

Islamic terrorism once seemed to wear a Shi'ite face and put the US on the side of the Sunni Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
  • In 1979 Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution, overthrew the pro-American Shah if Iran, Pahlavi
    • Together with the Iran hostage crisis which saw 52 American diplomats and citizens held hostage between November 1979 and January 1981 made Iran an enemy of the West
    • In 1983, when Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah bombed US marine barracks in Beirut (Lebanon) made the US side with Hussein
  • The US also supported and trained jihadists, including Osama bin Laden, in their fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets
  • Bin Laden believed that Allah had empowered him and his followers to establish a new caliphate
    • The ambition became absolute Sunni authority and Sharia law over the Muslim world