Iraqi nationalist and Ba ' athist elements ( part of the insurgency ) remained committed to expelling U. S. forces and also seemed to attack Shia populations, presumably, due to the Shia parties ' collaboration with Iran and the United States in making war against their own nation.

The United Iraqi Alliance, tacitly backed by Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with some 48 % of the vote.

In 2007, he played United States Secretary of Defense John Keller in the summer blockbuster Transformers, reuniting him with Holes star Shia LaBeouf.

The show followed five Lebanese-American Shia Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, the largest community of Muslim-Americans in the United States.

In a book published in 2009, it was estimated that 600, 000 archaeological pieces were looted by Kurdish and Shia militias allied with the United States since 2003.

Britain and the United States have also accused Iran of backing Shia militias in Iraq, which have at times attacked Coalition troops, Iraqi Sunni militias and civilians, and Anglo-American-supported Iraqi government forces.

A Shia Muslim, al-Hafez was the Iraqi representative to the United Nations from 1978 to 1980 ; afterwards, he headed the Arab Economic Research Association in Cairo.

Allawi is often described as a moderate Shia ( a member of Iraq's majority faith ) chosen for his secular background and ties to the United States.

I appreciate the fact that we have a strong military in this country, and I'd keep a strong military in this country, but I think this was the wrong war at the wrong time because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country, and I think that was the wrong thing to do because sooner or later we're going to see another country copy the United States, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with the fact that there may well be a Shia fundamentalist regime set up in Iraq which will be a greater danger to the United States than Iraq is.

The United Iraqi Alliance, tacitly backed by Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, led with some 48 % of the vote.

** At least four Shia Muslims, believed to be members of the Mahdi Army are killed by US soldiers in a gunfight following a United States raid into Sadr City, eastern Baghdad.

During the 2011 pro-democracy revolution, Salman, in public statements aimed at the western media ( and in in talks with the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, William Hague ) claimed to have made contact with representatives of all of the country's political parties, including the main Shia opposition parties.

In March 1991 revolts in the Shia-dominated southern Iraq started involving demoralized Iraqi Army troops and the anti-government Shia parties.

Shia terror organizations associated with the American occupation forces within Iraq gained increasing power and influence in the collaborationist Iraqi government.

The war, which ended the rule of Saddam Hussein's Ba ' ath Party, also led to violence against the coalition forces and between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and to al-Qaeda operations in Iraq.

Afghan refugees are mostly Persian-speaking Hazara or Tajiks, speaking a dialect of Persian, and Iraqi refugees, who are mainly Shia Muslim Mesopotamian Arabic-speakers of Iranian origin.

SCIRI was designed to be an umbrella organization that would unite under one banner the various Iraqi Shia groups, including al-Dawa and Munazamat.

Despite its pledge to support the stabilization of Iraq, Iranian authorities continued to provide lethal support, including weapons, training, funding, and guidance, to Iraqi Shia militant groups that target US and Iraqi forces.

In March 2012 reports by human rights activists suggested that, in a single month, Shia militias in Iraq had shot or beaten to death up to 58 young Iraqi emos.

A first cousin of former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein, he became notorious in the 1980s and 1990s for his role in the Iraqi government's campaigns against internal opposition forces, namely the ethnic Kurdish rebels of the north, and the Shia religious dissidents of the south.

Majid was first sentenced to hang in 2007 for his role in a 1988 military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Operation Anfal ; in 2008 he also twice received a death sentence for his crimes against the Iraqi Shia Muslims, in particular for his role in crushing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and his involvement in the 1999 killings in the Sadr City ( then Saddam City ) district of Baghdad.

On January 19, 2008, 2 million Iraqi Shia pilgrims marched through Karbala city, Iraq to commemorate Ashura.

20, 000 Iraqi troops and police guarded the event amid tensions due to clashes between Iraqi troops and Shia Muslims which left 263 people dead ( in Basra and Nasiriya ).

Al-Dawa party, in contrast to the other Shia Islamic Iraqi opposition parties, took a stance against the war.

On July 13, 2003, New York Times published another article that in 1991 when Saddam Hussein used the MEK and its tanks as advance forces to crush the Iraqi Kurdish people in the north and the Iraqi Shia people in the south, Maryam Rajavi as then leader of MEK's army forces commanded:

However, after the First Gulf War ( 1991 ), the Iraqi government aggressively revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River away from the marshes in retribution for a failed Shia uprising.

There he emerged as one of the most influential Iraqi leaders, with his longtime opposition to Hussein gaining him immense credibility, especially among the majority Shia population.

Iraq's Shia population was persecuted during the presidency ( 1979 – 2003 ) of Saddam Hussein, and certain elements of the Iraqi insurgency have made a point of targeting Shias in sectarian attacks.

Following the Taliban's harsh treatment of Afghanistan's Shia minority, Iran stepped up assistance to the Northern Alliance.

The main opponent of Future Movement is the March 8 Alliance, most important parts being Free Patriotic Movement ( FPM ) led by General Michel Aoun and the Shia Hezbollah and Amal Movements.

A Lebanese public opinion poll taken in August 2006 shows that most of the Shia did not believe that Hezbollah should disarm after the 2006 Lebanon war, while the majority of Sunni, Druze and Christians believed that they should.

Fighting was primarily between the majority Shia and the minority Sunni.

Iraq and Sudan are connected by remote cultural similarities such as language ( both countries speak Arabic, though the two are different in dialect ) and religion, both are Muslim ( however Sudan is predominantly Sunni, while the majority of Iraq is Shia ).

The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fuelled by fears of Shia Islam insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

Although the majority of sects within Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation ; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Kabbalah, the Cathars, and the Shia sects such as the Alawi Shias and the Druze and the Rosicrucians.

Iraq and Sudan are connected by remote cultural similarities such as language ( both countries speak Arabic, though the two are different in dialect ) and religion, both are Muslim ( however Sudan is predominantly Sunni, while the majority of Iraq is Shia ).

Sunnis of different schools ( Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi ' i and Hanbali ) constitute the majority while there is a significant Shia minority in and around Medina.

The majority of Tehranis are believed to be moderate followers of Twelver Shia Islam, which is also the state religion, but it cannot be confirmed independently for lack of independent statistics.

An estimated 80-89 % of the population practice Sunni Islam and belong to the Hanafi Islamic law school while 10-19 % are Shi ' a, majority of the Shia follow the Twelver branch with smaller numbers of Ismailis.

Shia and Sunni Islamic parties have both criticised the government over the composition of the appointed Shura Council, after it was given a strongly liberal majority, with Al Meethaq being the biggest group in the chamber.

The Shia Ismailis, who in turn split from the Shia mainstream of Twelvers over another succession dispute, have subsumed several groups which the majority of Muslims view as heterodox, such as the Seveners, and gnostic-influenced Alawites, and many other sects and subsects.

Though not among the most hard-line of Islamists, Al-Hakim was seen as dangerous by the ruling Ba ' ath regime, largely because of his agitation on behalf of Iraq's majority Shia population ( the ruling regime was mostly Sunnis ).

In turn, the Sunnis have complained of discrimination and human rights abuses by Iraq's Shia majority government, which is bolstered by the fact that Sunni detainees were allegedly discovered to have been tortured in a compound used by government forces on November 15, 2005.

However, this Shia minority forms the second largest Shia population of any country, larger than the Shia majority in Iraq.

It has always been a minority religion, with the majority state religions — Zoroastrianism before the Islamic conquest, Sunni Islam in the Middle Ages and Shia Islam in modern times — though it had a much larger representation in the past than it does today.

Shia mourners in countries with a significant Shi ' a majority flagellate themselves with chains or whips, which in extreme cases may causing bleeding.

its many ties to the majority Shia population in Iraq.

Ultimately the majority of the Shia favoured Musa al-Kazim, a younger son of Imam Ja ’ far al-Sadiq and half-brother of Ismail.

Maysan is a majority Shia province.