Why Do Islamist Militants Target Shiite Muslims?
The source of the rage motivating Islamist militancy can also be seen in the selection of targets in the current wave of terrorist attacks. Since the rise of al-Qaeda, atrocities against Shiite Muslims have increased dramatically, ending the relative coexistence between these major Islamic communities over the last century. In central Afghanistan, thousands of Hazara Shiites were exterminated by the Taliban in the late 1990s. Others were offered the choice of accepting Sunni Islam or expulsion from Afghan territory.12 Today, Shiite mosques in Pakistan and in Iraq are regularly attacked by suicide bombers with scores killed each time. What do these attacks on the Shiites have to do with militant Muslim grievances against the West for “what it has done.” No one would argue that a quick solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would somehow make Shiites in Najaf more secure from Zarqawi’s forces. Indeed, for the supreme Shiite cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the al-Qae
