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“Within the Shia position - that there is something unique about the Prophet's line that gives them a special ability to rule - there is an important division that was not immediately apparent after the Prophet's death: is this uniqueness something that is born within them, or is it a special knowledge which comes from either a secret teaching or from insights gained from prolonged intimacy with Muhammad?  This is important because if it is knowledge, then it can be codified and taught to those who are not his descendants, and it can also be lost by those who are.”
― Jesse Harasta, The History of the Sunni and Shia Split: Understanding the Divisions within Islam

“They weren’t just typical keep-’em-scared politics.”
― Tim Tigner, Betrayal

“The same official commented that the Pakistani army response took approximately 48 hours to mount, consisted of a two-battalion sweep of the area, commanded by a full colonel, and found nothing—a further example of the uselessness of large-scale sweep operations in this type of environment.”
― David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One

“Some terrorism analysts have seen the southern insurgency as an Islamic jihad that forms part of the broader network of AQ-linked extremism, with Islamic theology and religious aspirations (for shari’a law or an Islamic emirate) as a key motivator.73 This surface impression is reinforced by the facts that the violence is led by ustadz74 and other religious teachers, that the mosques and ponoh (Islamic schools) have a central role as recruiting and training bases, and that militants repeatedly state that they are fighting a legitimate defensive jihad against the encroachment of the kafir (infidel) Buddhist Thai government. Clearly, also, the AQ affiliate Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) has used Thailand as a venue for key meetings, financial transfers, acquisition of forged documents,75 and money laundering and as a transit hub for operators.”
― David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One