It is important to remember that for many jihadis public enemy #1 is anything Shia or Iranian.
BAGHDAD, IRAQ — So when did YOU first hear of the so-called Islamic State (aka ISIS, aka Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, aka Islamic State of Iraq and Shams aka Islamic State of Iraq)? Was it when so-called ‘Caliph’ Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared the so-called ‘Caliphate’ in June 2014? Is that when the terrorist group appeared deus ex machina on the world stage?
Of course not. ISIS did not form in a vacuum. It evolved from another group, one with which I am sure you are much more familiar – Al Qaeda. I will not bore you with the details as you can probably read up on this using a great tool I just discovered called the ‘interweb’ or something like that.
Another misguided notion is that we in the West are somehow the only ones ISIS hates. Yes, we are on the list of targets, of that there is no doubt, but we forget (or some of you perhaps were not aware of this) that there is one group of people which ISIS and other Islamist terrorist bands REALLY hate. And who may those unfortunates be? Shia Muslims.
A blog post is no place to explain why this is so but it has to do with a divide in Islam that goes back to the very roots of the faith in the early 7th century. It has to do with succession and leadership. In summary, those after the death of the Prophet Muhammad quarreled over who should assume the mantel of Caliph (real Caliph not Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi fakery). And so we got ‘Sunnis’ and ‘Shias’ and the former have hated (and killed) the latter ever since.
On this day in 2010, three suicide car bombs hit the centre of Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad, killing at least 42 and injuring more than 200 others.
Today’s featured attack bears this millennium and a half of enmity out. On this day in 2010 three suicide car bombs hit the centre of Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad, in quick succession, killing at least 42 and injuring more than 200 others. The targets were foreign embassies, especially the Iranian one. In addition, the political movement headed by Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress, was also affected by the attack, and many of its guards and employees were among the casualties. Chalabi was seen as particularly close to the Iranians.
It is important in any good analysis of terrorism to take into account all the victims. I know that Iran is a ‘four-letter word’ in the West, and has been since 1979. That does not mean its dead and wounded are any less tragic.
