Thursday, September 11, 2014

The Middle East and its sects in a nutshell

I have been trying to sort the Middle East out in my head.

ISIS are Sunni, were allied to Al-Qaeda for a time but AQ found them too violent. They are fighting Assad of Syria. Sited in Syria and Iraq.

Assad is secular/Ba'athist/Alawite.

Alawite =Shia/syncretisation.

Free Syrian Army = Sunni.

Al-Qaeda are Wahabi Sunni jihadists. Wahabis are Sunni Salafists although Salafists do not like being called Wahabi, though non Wahabi Sunnis tend to call them that. They are like our 17th century Puritans. Wahabis hate holy sites and tombs because they are like idols. They form about 40% of the populations of the Emirates & Saudi Arabia. Non-Wahabis are Apostate and may therefore be killed.

Hezbollah are Shia based in Lebanon allied with Iran and Syria.

Hamas are Sunni, evolved out of Muslim Brotherhood and are based in Palestine and Qatar.

Muslim Brotherhood are Pan-Islamic (try to unite Sunni and Shia) but are hated by Bahrain, Egypt military, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia and UAE.

Iran is Shia.

Boko Haram are an AQ affiliate, Sunni/Salafist/Wahabi based in Nigeria. They do not believe the earth is round. They number only a few hundred, but the Nigerian Government is too corrupt to do anything about them.

Al-Shabaab in Somalia is also affiliated with AQ. They actually did quieten down the mindless militarism in Mogadishu when they arrived as the Islamic Courts Union, but the ICU was suppressed by Western influence.

They kill elephant for ivory.

I cannot guarantee that this is all 100% correct.

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