[livius]

I think everything you have said is correct. I am following this on Twitter (#iraq) and it’s easy to realize that this attack is not “sectarian” but goes way beyond that.

[odds]

It's interesting and makes a lot of sense if we look back at history of Islam and how Mohammad & his immediate successors operated.

The term Salafi actually refers to 'Salaf' (the pious predecessors, that is the first 3 generations of Islam, collectively).

They, including Mohammad himself, exercised a great deal of brutality to gain terrain, convert people to Islam as well as raided caravans for economic reasons.

Same tactics are employed by ISIS, which work towards their stated objective of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.