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Ishmailis 13%.
All borders in the region are artificial; creations of British and French chartmakers at the end of the First World War. There is justice in the claim that
the Sunnis of Iraq and Syria are a people without a nation. This grievance
is the root of Saudi donors funding rabidly anti-American Sunni ISIL;
conversely Iran, not the West, is the big provider of military assistance to
Shia Iraq, and more important, Shia militias. Is the map being redrawn in
line with entrenched population allegiances?
The war in the region is more a Sunni-Shia sectarian clash and a SaudiIran proxy war than a war on terror. ISIL has grown into a 10,000 strong
army with Sunni support, worldwide recruitment and funding. It has
penetrated Libya and Afghanistan. There is full blown war in Yemen and
the (Sunni) Arab League is forming a regional army to fight Iran backed
Huthi rebels. ISIL is opposed to the Shia Huthis and therefore it is on the
Saudi (American) side! In Iraq-Syria America is on the anti-ISIL and
therefore on the Iranian side! How the chips may eventually fall is hard to
tell but the clash of civilisations is not exclusively an East-West thing but
also an inter-Islamic sectarian massacre. I believe that ISILs brutality will
bring about its eventual downfall; the world will not have it.
Jamaican born Nobel Prize winning writer VS Naipaul says: "ISIL is
dedicated to a holocaust. It has pledged the murder of Shias, Jews,
Christians, Copts, Yazidis, anyone it can, however fancifully, accuse of
being a spy. It could credibly abandon the label Caliphate and call itself the
Fourth Reich". Clearly he is reacting to ISILs indiscriminate bloodlust and
its declaration of a caliphate not just over Muslims but its stated aspiration
to "Raise the flag of Allah over the White House".
Boko Haram
Boko Haram is active in North Eastern Nigeria and among associated tribes
(mainly the Kanuri) that straddle Nigeria and neighbouring Chad,
Cameroon and Niger. Prior to British annexation this region was a
sovereign caliphate named the Sokoto Caliphate. After dismantling it the
British introduced an education system with Christian trappings which the
local population eschewed. Self-proclaimed Nigerian spiritual leader
Mohammed Yusuf (19702009) established a religious complex in 2002
that included a mosque and school where poor families from neighbouring