Word: sunni
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...ruin when he attacked Iran. He had once given refuge to the Ayatullah Khomeini, then, under pressure from the Shah, expelled him. Not only did Saddam want disputed territory, but he was also provoked when Khomeini began calling for the overthrow of Saddam's "blasphemous" regime. He is a Sunni Muslim, though most Iraqis belong to the rival Shi'ite branch, as did Khomeini. Saddam responded by invading, confident that his powerful, Soviet-equipped army could easily smash the Ayatullah's ragtag militia, but the Iranians fought back. When the going got especially rough, Saddam turned to poison...
...mosques sprang up across the Asian republics, where Muslim believers practiced their religion without official imprimatur. In Uzbekistan an undetermined number of Muslims have joined mystical Sufi sects. In Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan authorities have recently become concerned about the spread of groups espousing Wahhabism, the puritanical sect of the Sunni branch of Islam that first emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 18th century...
...these friends of Israel unaware of the manner in which Arab regimes deal with dissent and difference--whether non-Arab, like the Kurds in Iraq (more poison gas), or Arab, like the Sunni Muslims in Homs, Syria (was it 30,000 dead or 40,000?) and the people of Kuwait. And they quite reasonably draw the inference that if the Arabs are ready to treat their own that way, how much worse would they do to the enemy Jews, whom they define to one another (though no longer for sensitive Western ears and eyes) as intruders to be driven into...
Assad liquidated the city because the Sunni Moslem revolt based there could have spread throughout the country. He didn't see the Sunnis as Syrians but as an alien people. And he was able to exercise his power in such a horrific manner by taking advantage of the tradition of authoritarian rule...
...begin with, the time was ripe. The Shah had pushed his feudal and devout country into the modern, secular world too far and too fast, using torture and execution to suppress dissent. In addition, Khomeini's place in the world of Shi'ite theology gave him a platform. Unlike Sunni Muslims, members of Islam's other, much larger branch, Shi'ites believe in an intermediary between God and man. In Shi'ism's first centuries, this role of mediator was played by the Twelve Imams, who were thought to be the rightful successors to the Prophet Muhammad and who combined...