Hmmm, I guess that's why Saddam went after them, because they were Sunnis like him.
"Kurds are overwhelmingly Muslim and are typically members of the Sunni sect....."
This is a quote from culturalorientation.net, a web site set up to teach aid workers about refugees being resettled in the USA. Link: http://www.culturalorientation.net/kurds/krelig.html
Saddam went after the Kurds because they are a different racial group, they want to break away from Iraq and because the Iraqi Kurds helped Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.
Even in the Middle East, religous differences are not the cause for every conflict.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/religion.
htm
The Sunni population of Iraq is predominately Hanafi, while the Shi’i population is predominantly Ja’fari. Kurdish Muslims are mostly of the Sunni branch, but mainly follow the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam, which distinguishes them from the majority of the Iraqi Arab Sunni Muslim population, which is primarily of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam. There is also a strong Sufi mystic following among the Kurds. Sufism contributes to a less orthodox practice of Islam among much of the Kurdish population.
Not the same...different "branch"