[Zeroisanumber]

However, I thought you could only become a martyr if you died while killing infidels, i.e. non-believers? Clearly the Shia don't qualify as infidels.

That depends on who you ask. Like other major religions, Islam has groups of radicals who believe that they hold the One Universal Truth and that everyone else is crazy/misguided/heretical. Sunni and Shi'a Muslims have been fighing each other off and on for over a thousand years. It wouldn't be too unusual for a Sunni splinter group to decide that the Shi'a government of Iran was run by infidels.

[chet_in_ny]

Regardless of the denomination, it never ceases to amaze me the number of those "One Univeral Truth" people who reside here in the US.

[teenyelliott]

*sigh*

I'll never be able to keep all their rules straight. Each little group hates everyone else.

I have no idea how the people in the ME have survived this long.