Another one for the “Sunnis won’t work with Shi’ites against Infidels” files. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Interested:
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria secretly incited Iraq’s top Shia leader to declare holy war against US and British forces, according to Washington’s former administrator in the country.
In his new book, My Year in Iraq, Paul Bremer said he heard the explosive intelligence in October 2003 as sectarian tensions soared across the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein.
News of Assad’s actions “˜stunned” the US administration in Iraq
The report came from an extremely senior source, the supreme leader of Iraq’s majority Shia community, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.According to Mr Bremer, the news was passed to him by Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a senior Shia politician involved in negotiations with the ayatollah. The Syrian leader had apparently recalled the Shia-led uprising against the British in 1920 and urged the Shia to repeat history.