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
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