With the Shia being the minority, one can see why Iran is worried. No doubt the leaders see what is going on in the wider Muslim world where so many Shia are killed by Sunnis.
Iran fears Isis militants are part of wider Sunni backlash
With Islamic State militants just kilometres from the country’s western border, and increasingly radical anti-Shia militants to the east in Pakistan, Gareth Smyth examines Iran’s Sunni problem
Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei has called several times in recent months for Muslim unity. Pictured here at a Revolutionary Guard military manoeuvre in a western province near the border with Iraq in 2004. Photograph: AP
Gareth Smyth for Tehran Bureau
Tuesday 18 November 2014 00.00 EST
This may well have been an urban folk tale, but it highlighted a fear that Ahmadinejad’s assertive Shi’ism was not in Iran’s best interests. Rather than spread Iranian influence, unleash a revolution of the world’s dispossessed, or liberate Jerusalem from the Israelis, Iranian radicalism carried the danger of a backlash from Sunnis Muslims, who are around 80% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, while Shia are 10-15% and a majority in only Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain.
Continue reading at:
Iran fears Isis militants are part of wider Sunni backlash World news The Guardian
Iran fears Isis militants are part of wider Sunni backlash
With Islamic State militants just kilometres from the country’s western border, and increasingly radical anti-Shia militants to the east in Pakistan, Gareth Smyth examines Iran’s Sunni problem
Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei has called several times in recent months for Muslim unity. Pictured here at a Revolutionary Guard military manoeuvre in a western province near the border with Iraq in 2004. Photograph: AP
Gareth Smyth for Tehran Bureau
Tuesday 18 November 2014 00.00 EST
- Nearly ten years ago, a story circulating in Tehran had Mohammad Khatami say of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his successor as president, “No matter how extreme you are, you will always be in a queue behind Ousama [bin Laden].”
This may well have been an urban folk tale, but it highlighted a fear that Ahmadinejad’s assertive Shi’ism was not in Iran’s best interests. Rather than spread Iranian influence, unleash a revolution of the world’s dispossessed, or liberate Jerusalem from the Israelis, Iranian radicalism carried the danger of a backlash from Sunnis Muslims, who are around 80% of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, while Shia are 10-15% and a majority in only Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain.
Continue reading at:
Iran fears Isis militants are part of wider Sunni backlash World news The Guardian
