Here's The Flashpoint That Could Soon Plunge Iraq Into Full-Blown Civil War -- Business Insider
The golden-domed Samarra shrine is once again a flash point that threatens to plunge all of Iraq into a full-blown civil war.
Samarra's al-Askari Mosque contains the mausoleums of two Shia Imams, making it a key pilgrimage point and one of the most significant sites of worship for Shia worldwide. The bombing of the mosque in 2006 set off a vicious cycle of violence that was followed by Shiites carrying out revenge attacks against Sunni mosques and religious leaders.
Now, the militant jihadist group ISIS is attacking the shrine. ISIS follows a deeply puritanical Sunni thread of Islam that believes shrines are antithetical to Islam and should be destroyed — a practice they have carried out in areas they control in Syria.
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My Comment: When the mosque was attacked and destroyed in 2006 it unleashed a sectarian war that took thousands of lives and the intervention of tens of thousands of US soldiers to stop it from becoming an all out sectarian war. Today .... there are no US forces present to stop such an event if it should happen again .... a goal that ISIS militants have vowed to do if they should capture of the mosque in their drive to conquer this part of Iraq.
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