Word: sectarianism
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Another challenge would be to ensure that the new alliance does not inflame the sectarian divide in the Islamic world, which could happen if it is seen as a Sunni cabal against the Shi'ites. But if the new Iraqi government (the only Shi'ite-led one besides Iran in the region) joined, the new alliance could show that it was willing to protect both moderate Shi'ites as well as Sunnis. The alliance would then be able to help take over from the U.S. some of the security responsibility in Iraq, and it could wean the Shi'ite leaders...
...with an argument in a university cafeteria between Shi'ite and Sunni students, and ended in a violent riot that engulfed several Muslim districts of Beirut, leaving four people dead and the city locked down under a nighttime curfew. Lebanon's bickering political bosses have released the genie of sectarian rage, and it is by no means certain that it can be coaxed back into the bottle...
...Although that shift had generated a sense of unease among Lebanese Sunnis, the recent explosion of sectarian hostilities was triggered by a growing political confrontation during the past two years. Generally, Hizballah and its mainly pro-Syrian allies seek to wrest Lebanon away from the orbit of the United States and keep it at the forefront of the struggle against Israel. The anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, which forms the backbone of the government and includes the Sunnis, has seized upon the support of the West and its Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia to break Syria's grip on Lebanon...
...Lebanon's political fault lines today tend to follow sectarian boundaries, with the Shi'ites overwhelmingly following the Hizballah-led opposition, while the majority of Sunnis back the government and the Future Tide movement of Saad Hariri, Rafik's son and political heir. The tension between the two camps also mirrors the broader Shi'ite-Sunni political rift throughout the Arab world that has been rekindled by the Iraq conflict. The chief protagonists in this new "cold war," as some analysts describe it, are Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Arab world...
...hills scarred by heavy industry; men who could take a punch, and then another, and keep on throwing. Generations of conflict between Protestants and Catholics only hardened the alloy. But McCord, 53, a powerfully built welder from a Protestant family, always showed his mettle in standing up to the sectarian men of violence. Having grown up in North Belfast, the crowded, often run-down part of the city where one in five of Northern Ireland's murders is committed, he built his reputation by standing up to the paramilitary gangs that rule the neighborhoods. "I don't like bullies...