Many times we have seen both Sunnis and Shi’ites attack mosques of the opposing group, and murder many people. Yet the Sunni-Shi’ite jihad gets little notice in the international media or from the global “human rights community.” They are much more focused on “Islamophobia,” although “Islamophobes” have never killed anyone in any mosque.
“Forty Killed in Attack on Sunni Mosque in Iraq,” by Safa Majeed and Matt Bradley, Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2014 (thanks to Twostellas):
BAGHDAD—Gunmen thought to be connected to a Shiite militia killed 40 people and wounded 30 others in an attack on a Sunni mosque in the restive province of Diyala during Friday afternoon prayers, according to a local security official, in a development that is likely to further inflame sectarian tensions.
The armed assault on the Musa’b bin Oumair mosque in the Hamrin region of Diyala province followed an attack with an improvised explosive device by unknown militants that also struck the mountainous Hamrin region northeast of the provincial capital of Baqouba, according to Ismail Al-Jobouri, a former member of the Diyala provincial council.
Though the exact identities of the perpetrators in both attacks were unclear by midafternoon on Friday, the incidents illustrate the pitfalls in the Iraqi government’s policy of using irregular Shiite militias to combat a Sunni Islamist insurgency that has swallowed up nearly a quarter of the country since June.
The province of Diyala is divided between Iraq’s Sunni minority and the Shiite sect that dominates Iraq’s central government in Baghdad. The area has long played host to bloody sectarian tensions, and security in the region serves as a bellwether of wider strains throughout the country.
Since militants belonging to the Islamic State took over the northern city of Mosul and surged southward to within striking distance of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, in mid-June, outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has relied on Shiite militias to fill the gaps in his badly routed military.
It was unclear which, if any, of the Shiite militias were responsible for Friday’s attacks. But many such Shiite groups have taken part in massacres of Sunni worshipers in the past, particularly in Diyala.
Some groups, such as Asaib Ahl Al Haq and the Badr Corps, are trained and financed by Iraq’s Shiite-majority neighbor Iran.