Ok the issue of Islam being divided has been raised a couple of times now and I think I should clear up what exactly the divide is over, since people seem to be mistaking it as differences that are so huge that the different groups in Islam are all out to kill each other.

The major divide in Islam is the Sunni/Shia divide. The origins of this divide lie pretty early on Islam. Without going into excessive detail, the stumbling block was who should be Caliph during the early era of the Caliphate. Hence the divide between the Sunni and the Shia is political in origin, not theological as many people mistake it to be. Ofcourse in the Sunni and the Shia different schools of thought exist on theological issues, but Islam allows for this difference. An example of what this means is as follows. During the time of the 4th Caliph Ali bin Abi Talib, there was a dispute as to which affairs of the State should be given priority (The Shia are 'the party of Ali'). The Caliph was locked in a dispute with the Governer of Syria, Muwawiyah. Muwawiyah was said to have become even more powerful than Ali, as he was at the frontiers of the Caliphate with the Roman Empire and had developed a powerful military there. The Romans, seeing this potential split as a chance to break apart the Caliphate, offered Muwawiyah support in overthrowing Ali as Caliph. Muwawiyah responded by telling the Romans that was once his dispute with Ali was solved he would come after them to destroy them.

Just like then, today the Sunni Shia split is manipulated by foreign powers. Today the added difference is that there are corrupt religious ministers who also use this to their own ends, and if you throw in people who don't know their history with regards to the split you have quite a confusing situtation.

Today there are many sects in Islam, on both the Sunni and the Shia. Some of them have acceptable differences in the framework Islam provides, others do not. The main difference in the Sunni and the Shia today is again guess what... political. The Sunni believe that a Caliphate must be recreated and ruled by Islam and by electing a Caliph, whilst the Shia believe that no ordinary man can rule the Caliphate and must one of the 'Chosen Imams'. Since there is now chosen Imam in the world today, but one expected near the end of time, the Shia's believe in not getting involved in political activity. The Sunni believe any man is capable of running the Caliphate, and hence activley call for its restablishment. That is why the Shia's have Ayatollahs, who are spiritual leaders but no such figure exists for the Sunni's, who await a Caliph to give their allegience to.

So there was a mention of Saddam's party being mostly Sunni. Yes, they were Sunni but they did not implement Islam. They were Baa'thist nationalists, hence the Sunni 'tag' was only an identifier and nothing more than that. As for the Kurds, that is an ethnic label, they are actually sunni's. The reason why the Kurds are not liked by many countires is because they want to form their own country along nationalist lines, Kurdistan. Kurds today exist in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. If they formed their own country they would take a chunk of territory from each of these countries. They continue fighting for their country since they were promised one by the British, who helped carve up the last Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire.

Getting back to the latest conflict, for Muslims, regardless of if they are Sunni or Shia, the killing of the (Shia) Muslims is like the killing of just that, a Muslim. The differences are manipulated and exploited due to politics, not Islam.