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US drones fired on an Islamic extremist mortar position in northern Iraq on Tuesday to protect Kurdish forces battling to rescue a group of Yazidi civilian refugees, the military said. The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the region's most powerful Sunni jihadist group, has driven thousands of members of the Yazidi minority from their homes and is besieging the refugees on an exposed mountain. Last week, the United States launched an air campaign to break the siege of Mount Sinjar, bring humanitarian relief to the Yazidis and support Kurdish troops protecting their capital Arbil. "US military...

(Baghdad) The Islamic State (IS) has a new yellow star to identify the Christians. The identification of the members of the other "religions of the book" of Christians and Jews is an invention of Islam, where it has an old tradition that goes back to the late Early Middle Ages. Jews and Christians had to each carry their own clothes, so that they were recognized by all Muslims. Therefore, the yellow color is due in clothing for the Jews, which was first documented in the 9th century in  Islamic occupied Sicily.The yellow Star of David in the Nazi Reich to designate  Jews was borrowed from...

People walk through the rubble of the Prophet Younis Mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by militants ISIS in the city of Mosul, July 24, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer MOSUL: Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) that controls large parts of Iraq have blown up a Shiite shrine in the city of Mosul, an official and witnesses said Saturday. Jihadists destroyed the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul, the de facto Iraqi capital of the "caliphate" proclaimed last month by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. " ISIS militants stopped people from coming...

Taliban insurgents halted minibuses in western Afghanistan, identified 14 Shiite passengers and shot them dead by the side of the road .. marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ... The Taliban, like other Sunni extremist groups, view the country's minority Shiite community as apostates, and have targeted Hazaras

A classified military assessment of Iraq’s security forces concludes that many units are so deeply infiltrated by either Sunni extremist informants or Shiite personnel backed by Iran that any Americans assigned to advise Baghdad’s forces could face risks to their safety, according to United States officials. The report concludes that only about half of Iraq’s operational units are capable enough for American commandos to advise them if the White House decides to help roll back the advances made by Sunni militants in northern and western Iraq over the past month. Adding to the administration’s dilemma is the assessment’s conclusion that...

Escalating crisis drives surge in Iraq's messianic movements The radicalization of Iraqi politics that has contributed to the current crisis in the country can be better understood with an appreciation of the role of Islamic messianism, especially among Iraqi Shiites. This trend may even be more prominent, because if there is a battle for Baghdad, it will be fought along religious and sectarian lines. Political and economic hardships in Iraq have contributed to the rise of radical Messianic movements that claim to represent the return of the Mahdi. Author Ali MamouriPosted June 19, 2014 Translator(s)Kamal Fayad The advent of saviors...

The Obama administration is hoping that 4,000 Hellfire missiles might turn the tide in Iraq as the Middle Eastern nation takes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Officials were told by the State Department last week that the Obama administration is trying to complete the sale with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government. Members of the Senate and House foreign relations committees will conduct a review of the planned sale. The process can take up to 40 days....

With the raging war between the Sunni and the Shiites in Iraq, and with the presidents apparent animosity toward the Iraqi government it seems important to understand if Obama has ties to the Sunnis or to the Shiites. Does anyone on FR know the answer to this?

U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly warned top government officials that Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki and his policies were gravely antagonizing his country's Sunni population, two U.S. security officials said on Friday. The officials said the warnings were contained in secret intelligence reports and analyses presented in the last two years to policymaking officials, including President Barack Obama. This contrasted with public comments by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who in his annual presentation to Congress on "worldwide threats" in January made only bland references to religious tensions in Iraq.

ISTANBUL — The likely breakup of Iraq into feuding ethnic and sectarian bastions accelerated Friday as Iraq’s senior Shiite Muslim cleric broke years of support for the central government and decreed that every able-bodied Shiite man had a religious obligation to defend the sect’s holy sites from rebellious Sunni Muslims led by fighters from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In answer to the call, thousands of Shiites many with militia experience from the sectarian war that pitted Sunnis against Shiites and killed thousands from 2006 to 2008 flooded the cities of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala to receive...

Iran Deploys Quds Forces To Support Iraqi Troops, Helps Retake Most Of Tikrit By Howard Koplowitz@howardkoplowitz on June 12 2014 1:55 PM Iran Deploys Forces To Iraq, Helps Retake Tikrit An elite branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is in Iraq fighting alongside Iraqi troops in a battle against an al-Qaeda affiliated militant group. \ Two battalions of the Quds Forces are already making progress in their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the Wall Street Journal reported. The militant group took control of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday, but Revolutionary Guard and Iraqi...

Baghdad, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's most senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, escalating a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-up of the country. In a rare intervention at Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, a message from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the highest religious authority for Shi'ites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against a lightning advance by militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Fighters under the black...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Conflict in Syria kills hundreds of thousands of people and spreads unrest across the Middle East. Iranian forces battle anti-Shi'ite fighters in Damascus, and the region braces for an ultimate showdown. If the scenario sounds familiar to an anxious world watching Syria's devastating civil war, it resonates even more with Sunni and Shi'ite fighters on the frontlines - who believe it was all foretold in 7th Century prophecies. From the first outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of...

AMMAN, Jordan — In offices above busy commercial streets here in the Jordanian capital, Iraqi tribal and religious leaders are plotting a revolution in their own country. “It is a war,” said Muthana al-Dari, surrounded by satellite maps of flash points in western Iraq, where government security forces, tribes and al-Qaeda-inspired insurgents are engulfed in a complicated clash.

Iranian teacher uses hi-tech robot to encourage prayers An Iranian schoolteacher has come up with a novel way of encouraging young children to learn their daily prayers. 27-year-old Akbar Rezaie, who teaches the Quran at the Alborz elementary school in Varamin, near Tehran, took a robotics course and applied his knowledge to help modify an educational robot kit. He says the aim is to provide pupils with a stimulating visual example of a variety of Shi’ite worship. “I used to pray hastily but now I want to pray more slowly like this robot,” said one student. Now, pupils in this...

The speaker of Iraq's parliament warned on Friday that upcoming elections might be used to further marginalize already-frustrated Sunni Muslims, who have chafed against what they call unfair treatment from the country's Shi'ite prime minister. Usama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, said in an interview during a visit to Washington that he feared attempts to discourage voting or "provoke the situation" in Sunni areas, or to sideline certain would-be candidates, were designed "to weaken Sunni representation in parliament." He also warned that poor security could pose problems for the parliamentary polls, scheduled for April 30. "If the security conditions worsen, the elections...

QUETTA, Pakistan- A bomb ripped through a bus full of Shi'ite pilgrims in western Pakistan and killed at least 22 people on Tuesday, police said, extending a spate of sectarian attacks that have shaken the South Asian nation. The bomb exploded near a bus carrying pilgrims returning from neighboring Iran to their home city of Quetta in Pakistan, officials said. At least 20 people were wounded, said the assistant police commissioner for Mastung district, Shafqat Anwar Shawani, and many of the victims were women and children. .....

In a fascinating article for FrontPage Magazine titled “Now the Twelfth Imam Can Come,” scholar of Islam Robert Spencer provides a crash course on the nature of Twelver Shi’ite theology, with particular reference to a nuclearizing Iran. Shi’ites believe in the return of the so-called Twelfth Imam who is descended from Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali ibn Abni Talib, the fourth caliph assassinated in 661 in a succession war, after which the split between Sunnis and Shi’ites eventually became permanent. As Spencer explains, the Shi’ites continued a line of imams, “members of Muhammad’s household and his prophetic heirs. Each one in...

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad Monday called for a battle against Wahhabism, the political and religious ideology embraced by the Saudi government, a key backer of the uprising against his regime. The comments came amid ongoing tensions between the two countries, which are fiercely opposed to each other.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Shiite Muslims staging a religious procession near Pakistan’s capital Friday killed seven Sunnis from an Islamic seminary for insulting them as they passed, officials said. ... The Shiites were observing Ashoura, which commemorates the 7th century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. The schism between Sunnis and Shiites dates back to that time.