the shias today are imposing their numbers and their power. in the prayers always end with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you never heard them . but many on under saddam a million years were detained and many of them were assassinated and thrown into mass graves and it's not much of a sentiment i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraqi jails about my family only received news of me one or two years after i was released. i was even afraid of my own brother i thought he was an officer who come to interrogate me yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias on me when i be. leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed there. that. possible. on the baghdad and basra highway in the middle of the desert our faithful taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness. as if by magic a man appears from the sams to help us o

and i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community the shia it.pilgrims are well protected. all the officers and soldiers are shia. several million faithful including many from iran come every year to visit the mosques and kabbalah a boon for the holy city. religion is a river of gold as the saying goes. we get more it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better and they're always better than an occupier. and invader always has trouble understanding the country they occupy and as the air proverb says no one knows the roads of mecca better than its own inhabitants limit that shout. this is. the main prayer takes place in hussein most. the interim sermons a political resonance and a broadcast throughout iraq and the shia world and. the shias today are imposing their numbers and their power. in the prayers always and with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you know that there. was. many on the underside a million shias were detained and many of

you can see it too in iraq and the worsening sunni shia standoff that's already claimed thousands of lives there she added president assad is supported by hezbollah a lebanese political party and a militant organization that's also affiliated with shia islam lebanon has already seen fifteen years of civil war involving not just sunni and shia muslims but also the christians and the druze branch of islam and both lebanon and syria the fighting effects neighboring jordan to it is now flooded by hundreds of thousands of syrian refugees some of which have been drawn into skirmishes with local residents sectarian affiliation also plays a role in the arms shipments into syria shii the iran is said to supply to us and forces while the predominantly sunni could tar and saudi arabia lend a helping hand to the rebels who are also getting at all coddling to boost generations of sectarian animosity in all of these countries have never been a national borders and a deepening syria shockwave might be what lights the touch paper to the entire region into a blood soaked catastrophe. well in iraq ano

the areas hit are mostly shia muslim. the syrian national coalition is meeting in istanbul with the aim of choosing a president, but it remains divided and who will be elected. the last few minutes, serious for us -- foreign minister said -- syria's foreign minister said a syrian delegation will meet in geneva for peace talks. french police are investigating a possible link between an attack on a soldier in paris and the murder of a british soldier in london on wednesday. the french soldier survived a knife wound to the neck. his attacker is still on the run. peter sharp reports. >> the 23-year-old was in uniform and on duty as part of a security patrol in a commercial district of france when he was attacked from behind. cctvssailant was caught on and is said to be bearded and possibly of north african origin. >> we think he was wearing white sneakers. things are evolving. in any case, everything has been recorded on video. >> french police say they are investigating whether there were links to the murder of a british sol

they'll still be it'll probably be somewhat similar although i'd love to get your take on that of shia and sunni you have you've got these two ethnic groups and there's others you know the kurds in the north both the shia and sunni in particular. blowing each other up you know the people who were killed yesterday. in the very publicly and in iraq. we broke this country. you could argue whether or not saddam hussein started it way invaded kuwait but the reality is we broke this country and you were one of the people tasked with putting it back together or at least participating with something that was to look like we were putting them back together what is the what is the situation like now in iraq and and to what extent is that the consequence of our successes or failures the cracks that we're seeing right now in iraq were starting even while i was there in two thousand and nine and two thousand and nine we were just coming off of the surge which was supposed to have won the war for us and one of the signature parts of the surge was the sons of iraq and he made up organization made up

shia and sunni politicians are not working well together. of course, there is a regional die mention to all of this. there is this rift between shia and sunni that we have seen in syria that is affecting the situation in lebanon, perhaps even jordan, but really iraq is one of the most vulnerable in terms of syria's neighbors. iraq is saying, look, we've seen this rise in violence, we've seen over 700 dead in april, which is the highest number of dead nearly five years. we see the violence continue, but they do not see see any urgency from their own politicians in terms of finding a solution, and they do not see any urgency from the outside world in terms of getting involved in trying to mediate between shia and sunni politicians, because surely if that was better, if there was better consensus, then perhaps the violence would receive. >> thank you so much. a lookollow that up with at some more top stories. north korea has fired another short-range missile into the sea off its eastern coast, the fifth launch since saturday comes at a time of

most people in the shia support al-assad. the battles are raging close by. foreign minister says his government has agreed in principle to take part in talks aimed ending the civil war. during ae a comment trip to baghdad on sunday. the conference in geneva is a good opportunity to find a solution to the crisis. pressure on the syrian coalition to decide whether they will attend those talks in istanbul. it is trying to widen the group's base and elect new leaders. what has been the response to the syrian government announcing it will attend those talks? >> well, the syrian coalition, the opposition coalition, has not issued a final decision yet on geneva ii. but we did hear remarks from one of their spokesmen responding to this statement by the foreign minister. he said that all along the coalition agreed in principle to attend in geneva ii pending clarification from the regime. so far, according to the opposition, the signal has not been posted. dialogue witht a the opposition. we are not looking for a dialogue. it presupposes that we agree on a lot of issu

the sunni and shia militants from both countries are already fighting each other. northernday, in the lebanese city of tripoli, young seamen who support the rebels exchanged gunfire and mortar shells with their neighbors -- who support the rebels exchanged gunfire. >> aljazeera, beirut. opposition of the rebels and government troops in an exchange of fire. are goingthe videos to the internet. they show the destruction, and they say they were the result of shelling by the military. and they were speaking in doha. he criticized the international community for not doing more to end the war. >> it is no longer acceptable for the powerful countries not to act to put an end to this terrible tragedy and the humanitarian disaster. at the same time, they want to determine the identity of those who were defending the people under various pretexts. sadly, this happened after the failure of initiatives pushing the syrian regime to listen to the voice of reason. >> in sweden, the capital of stockholm, cleaning up after rioting. this was in one suburb. people living in the distr

understand there's two major factions within the religion and those of the shoot the sunni and the shia and they have been fighting for centuries so we've had it's not something new that has appeared but in iraq in particular it has gotten a lot worse ever since the visions you have said and in fact there is there people are so the experts are saying that. actually it's been going great it's going it's growing worse with every single year in fact the u.n. mission for iraq has estimated that just this past april was the worst month in terms of deadly attacks in iraq since two thousand and eight if you look at the numbers there are truly staggering in a very frightening way. in april alone more than seven hundred people were killed sixteen hundred were injured or you can see that for for the for the four months the first four months of the year more than two hundred people have been dying every single month and just this week alone just on monday thirty people were killed those bombs were exploding this was it was the sunni is targeting the shia. neighborhoods in the major towns of the ma

shia militia support the regime of syrian president bashar al-assad. sunnis back the opposition. nhk world's sho beppu has more. >> reporter: the civil war in syria has divided tripoli in northern lebanon, the country's second largest city. we made our way to the front line, guided by sunni residents during a break in the violence. the walls of an elementary school bear the marks of gunfight. just down the street are the positions of the pro-assad militias. when gunfire erupts, bullets from there sometimes fly into the rooms of buildings. >> translator: the enemy positions are just over there. every time a battle erupts, we exchange fire with them at close range. >> reporter: more and more sunni militia have smuggled themselves into syria to fight alongside the anti-assad rebellion. hussein huru was one of them. he died on the civilian front five months ago. his brother walid says hussein accused the assad government of oppressing the sunnis in syria. >> translator: i'm proud that my brother died fighting in syria. many young people in this area feel the same way. >> translator:

a trip between the christians and the muslims between the us and others between the sunni and the shia and then syria and israel got involved in the united states got involved so. i am afraid that until the thing burns from within until these people get exhausted nobody is going to threaten a nuclear weapon as you know use of the saudis going to cool down on the us are they going to cool down on this. they want to sit down at the patient could tell you with a rationally to tell you peter peter you asked a question i answered go ahead i wish i wish i could tell you that the united states could just pick up the phone to the king of saudi arabia and stop saudi support of salafi jihadi. wahhabi factions in that war

sunni versus shia shia versus sunni i mean without assigning blame or responsibility that is what is going on affected really now both in iraq and in syria in iraq you had a situation where the sunnis constituted a minority but ran the previous regime the united states intervened and effectively handed over power to the religious parties of one sort or an over another they then carried out in large ethnic cleansings in bulk and in other cities and we now see the in response to that at a time when the united states itself has very few if any groups left in iraq in syria you had the opposite you had a lot of sunni majority which was governed by the white bird regime very closely linked to iran and the arab uprisings that took place destabilize the region further in my opinion you have a minority supporting the syrian government a minority supporting the islamist rebels. no large proportion of the population waiting for the war to end and hoping that something will happen to bring conclusion to this war well as we see it hard here the sectarian situation is why complex and the tension i

the shia who were targeted in baghdad and but in fact the u.n. mission for iraq has said that since two thousand two thousand and eight april was the deadliest month because more than six more than seven hundred people were killed sixteen hundred were injured in these attacks continue to happen and always daily bases and there it seems that there is no way for them to stop of course now we have the and now we have the tribal leaders from the sunni provinces and if we could look at the map we could see that this in the provinces are mostly to the west of the country and they are saying we will stop the attacks will stop the violence yes you can see them right there the kind of gold and the mustard colored ones those are the provinces that are saying we will stop the attacks if you will give us autonomy and the prime minister nuri al maliki said he is going to think about establishing a ton of this region in that part of the country but he says of course it has to be done through proper legal procedures and that means more time more people work and

two major strains of islam, sunni and shia. there are basically three pillars of shia power in the region. hezbollah, the militia in lebanon, the assad regime which is a small sect of shia and the iranian regime. those three are now together allies, right? >> i would add iraq, absolutely. >> those are now allies fighting against the sunni -- the largely sunni -- so it is being understood in the region and is in the region a sectarian war. and john mccain standing there saying i am posing with a guy who is a sunni who kidnapped possibly religious pilgrims who were just on a bus going to a shrine. that is a signal. matt, this is what i want to hear from you, okay. we in the liberal media, we love to talk about republican civil wars. it's our favorite thing, we write about them all the time. i've been anticipating when is there going to be the anti-neocon revolt in the republican party. here's rand paul who we just saw a clip of. he has an op-ed today he says about a senate bill. it is unclear what national security interests we h

the iraq i see today is a country on the brink of chaos torn between three groups kurds sunnis and shias. it is a country divided a stranger to peace that i'm about to cross a taxi ride to the heart of iraqi history. from the hole in the north travelled down through l b let some ammonia kirkuk mosul tikrit volusia baghdad babylon. and. a road map of the iraqi tragedy. serve obviously i'm delighted the americans have finally left iraq as much of what we are rock is a very happy not to see it here anymore enough was enough of the americans occupied us so we hate them like they lean here in iraq raid killed in creating the conditions for chaos they're responsible for the whole tragedy of them and of course we were living in peace and they came to destroy our country and us over it all of us out of them but. my journey begins on the mountains of iraqi kurdistan. an army of two hundred thousand soldiers called peshmerga watch over this rather particular region of the country. was. my first stop is an l.b.o. the capital of iraqi kurdistan is the only region of iraq today that is seeing peace a

the americans have gone but now kurds shias and sunnis battle for control of the city. even the mosques are under military protection the internet in killing goes on in the name of allah. a leave muscle with no regrets. this road fraught with danger can also hold certain surprises in the trial of stops to help a friend even in iraq one can run out of petrol. it's hilarious we have the world's second biggest oil reserves and we're short of petrol and gas. were reduced to filling up on the black market at exorbitant prices. common sense would suggest that petrol was available in quantity and free perhaps not free but not too expensive anyway and what. john. as soon as we arrived on the outskirts of tikrit saddam hussein's former stronghold where arrested by the police i have the feeling we were expected. after a few hours of questioning were put under house arrest in a hotel and forbidden from going out. and the situation eases the following afternoon when we were granted two hours of freedom but we're still under close surveillance. the next man who joins us in the taxi

what's interesting in the polls though is that both sunni and shia muslims and all the countries say that they think that iran is a factor that is driving the sectarian division but there are other issues as well. clearly the role of the terrorist groups in iraq that targeted the shia muslims, the role of the denial of rights of the shia muslims in the arab gulf countries clearly the rhetoric against the community and vice versa coming from some in iran has a role in deepening the divide but so too to the policies and that is what we were looking at. for example, we will see when we look at, the numbers that iran's policy in iraq is considered a huge factor in driving down here on's favorable ratings. what the new back in 2000 for the first time that we were on this question who is the winner in iraq? guess who comes out the winner, iran. in 2006 it was even higher and in 2008 was even higher and in 2012 they clearly think that iran was the big winner because iraq was defeated, saddam hussein was the biggest nemesis to iran was defeated and is now emboldened in the broader region. bu

world but iraq i see today is a country on the brink of chaos torn between three groups sunni's and shia's. it is a country divided a stranger to peace that i'm about to cross a taxi ride to the heart of iraqi history. from the hole in the north of travel down through l.b. little ammonia kirkuk mosul tikrit volusia baghdad babylon. and. a road map of the iraqi tragedy. so obviously i'm delighted the americans have finally left iraq as much as we're rocky's a very happy not to see them here anymore enough was enough of the americans occupied us so we hate them like they lean here in iraq they killed in creating the conditions for chaos they are responsible for the whole tragedy because we were living in peace and they came to destroy our country and also without all of us of the. journey begins on the mountains of iraqi kurdistan. an army of two hundred thousand soldiers called peshmerga watch over this rather particular region of the country. was. my first stop is an l.b.o. the capital of iraqi kurdistan is the only region of iraq today that is seeing peace and an economic boom the miracle

the iraqi sunnis or are getting more organized and are likely to put up a lot of fight against the shia led government has allied to the united states let's talk about syria because you just said you know syria's also escalate into a civil war very bloody civil war seventy thousand dead in the last two years horrifying situation what how outcome are we likely to see there if the u.s. decides to engage militarily similar as as israel's decided well i hope the united states doesn't get involved i think would be a very bad idea the president obama has said there will be no american boots on the ground which at least is something america's no major strategic interests in syria what worries me a two things number one the most the priority for american relations to it should be do a void a direct confrontation with russia and particularly over a place like syria that has no great importance to nuclear armed powers cannot be in a confrontation and secondly i covered the civil war in lebanon from one nine hundred seventy five to one thousand nine hundred ninety and it was a nightmare it was all

they've been protesting against the shia muslim dominated government of prime ministerial malki. bombings have been carried out in baghdad. the explosions killed at least 8 people and wounded at least 38 others. >>> the national leaders in japan are reaches out to some of asia's most energized economies. finance ministers and central bank governors from japan signed an agreement at a meeting in india. it's the first time they held discussions. japanese aso attended the meeting. he stressed that the administration of abe considers the relationship particularly important. the participants agreed to make it easier for japanese companies to raise funds for local currencies. they also produced a plan that would see a liquidity in u.s. dollars to any country running short on the currency. after the talks, aso expressed hopes that the talks would have a wide ranging impact. >> translator: the financial afwriemts we agreed upon are aimed at creating a win/win relationship by coordinating the needs of japanese firms and lenders with those of asean. >> aso added that they need to tap into

two major strains of islam, sunni and shia. sunni is majority, shia minority, throughout the region. but there are basically three pillars of shia power in the region. hezbollah, the militia in lebanon, the assad regime, which is a small sect of shia, and the iranian regime. those three are now, together, allies, right -- >> i would add iraq. >> iraq, increasing. those are now allies, fighting against the sunni, the largely sunni -- so it is being understood in the region, and is in the region, a sectarian war, increasingly, between the two dominant strains and john mccain standing there saying, i am posing with a guy who is a sunni who kidnapped, possibly, religious pilgrims, who were just on a bus going to a shrine. matt, this is what i want to hear from you, okay? we in the liberal media, we love to talk about republican civil war. it's like our favorite thing. we write about them all the time. i've been anticipating, when is there going to be the anti-neo con revolt for real in the republican party? it never materializes. h

the tension between sunni protesters and the shia led government seems to have reached a turning point. in romani, armed men fought with the army almost two hours. several people were killed. the message to the army is clear. ourhey have killed some of senior tribal figures. today, the freeman of the iraqi tribes have risen up, including these two tribes. we are rising against the irradiance. god is great. exploded, two bombs near a sunni must and a protest site as worshipers finished friday prayers. it left the streets littered with bodies. dozens of people were killed. some were maimed, others injured. survivors say security forces share the blame because they were supposed to be protecting the area and searching the people. there were attacks and at least four sunni areas in baghdad and its outskirts. two bombs exploded not far from a mosque, killing several people. this latest wave of suicide attacks and bombings have hit the neighborhoods and mosques of both sunni and shia muslims. after really began government security forces stormed the protest site in april. they killed more th

the targets as we have seen have been ordinary markets particularly in shia areas as well as religious school and security forces. police in the army are continuing to bare the brunt of the attacks. in the northern city of mosul, a car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint killing 12 policemen, federal police and local officials. some believe this is score settling, vendettas by groips linked with al qaeda against the security forces. a lot of other people believe this increase in attacks is politically linked. and iraq's foreign minister said although there have been security operations aimed at the borders stemming the flow of fighters back and forth from syria, the bombings going off and car bombs are coming from inside iraq. >> for the people of iraq will have suffer so much and that's why you see the anger and people's eyes and statement is different from previous attacks because there has been a pattern the se attacks and governor's responsible to double efforts to revise security plans, to contend this wave to resthreapt from sliding into sectarian conflict or war as i and you wi

you know iraq certainly i see it in syria too so it's it's an awful thing because this is a shia sunni conflict is. relatively new they didn't have it in the it is breaking out iraq is clearly returning to civil war it's very interesting the only surviving member of saddam hussein's inner circle. announced that he is resuming the fights with the baath party that was supposedly wiped out to lead the resistance in iraq this means of the iraqi sunnis or getting more organized and are likely to put up a lot of fight against the shia led government was allied to the united states let's talk about syria because you just said you know syria's also escalate into a civil war very bloody civil war seventy thousand dead in the last two years horrifying situation what how outcome are we likely to see there if the u.s. decides to engage militarily similar as as israel's decided to do well i hope the united states doesn't get involved i think would be a very bad idea the president obama has said there will be no american boots on the ground which at least is something america's no major strategic in

trip between the christians and the muslims between the groups and others between the sunni and the shia and then syria and israel got involved in the united states got involved so. i am afraid that until the thing burns from within until these people get exhausted nobody is going to threaten a nuclear weapon as charges of the saudis could cool down on the us are they going to cool down on this. they want to say dad could tell you what would be rationally to tell you peter peter you asked a question i answered go ahead i wish i wish i could tell you that the united states could just pick up the phone to the king of saudi arabia and stop saudi support of salafi jihadi. wahhabi factions in that war on fortunately this saudis flush with cash they have so much money just like the qataris they support their own militia and the qataris support the other militias so you have a confrontation in a proxy war not just between the sunni's and the shias not just between the saudis and the arabians or the qataris and the iranians but between qatar and saudi arabia and a lot of people don't understand

weapons they don't do anything knows ago when saddam hussein was using gas again the kurds and the shia do you think and these latest u.n. findings if proven could change western rhetoric than. i hope so because there is a lot of data lot of information logged out system many as are people coming back we're coming back from syria we're not specifically supporters of the shah regime which was strong syrian pottery it's one of the peaceful countries and they see we always prefer bashar them to cow center and that goes for them in the what will happen if all the sellafield njt groups are going to take to power and done that so we hope that step by step because of the success of the military operation of the syrian army and all saw from the distin money from the people who are not involved in one part of the that's. clear of the proof about what's really happening in syria is going to be understood everywhere all right every kid denice a direct so the french center for intelligence studies eric many thanks indeed for your. after launching as strikes inside syria over the weekend increasing

talking about sectarian violence we have to understand that islam is composed of two main branches shia and sunni and they are constantly going at each other they have all these issues and questions and this point has been going on for centuries so really it's really hard to stop in fact the u.n. mission for iraq has said that since two thousand and two thousand and eight april was the deadliest month for more than seven hundred people were killed sixteen hundred were injured these attacks continue to happen on almost daily bases and there it seems that there is no way for them to stop of course now we have the now we have the tribal leaders from the sunni provinces mostly to the west of the country and they're saying we will stop the attacks if you will give us autonomy and the prime minister nuri al maliki said he is going to think about establishing a ton of this region in that part of the country but he says of course it has to be done through proper legal procedures and that means more time more people work and more bureaucracy and until until it's that actually happens who knows h

their homes to other areas so there are fears of the sectarian spillover of the you know the sunni shia asked dr pierce these fears do exist but i think that the husband is trying as much as it can to prevent this and say it hasn't been stressed yesterday that these al qaida affiliates kill some mees more than she hires and they don't believe anyone who doesn't share those their same ideology even if they are sunni and so i think is going out of its way to portray that this confrontation is not sectarian it's shia are so many christian against al qaida and its affiliates at least affairs expert ali risk live in beirut itself thank you very much indeed for your comments and your perspective on the latest developments thanks this is all t. the weekly and all the way an in-depth look at genetically modified food you can find out more in just a couple of minutes now but with a nice team with more news in half an hour from now. paranoia and zero tolerance policies strikes yet again the latest in a string of children being punished for making gun noises or playing with toy guns involves the s