No. They are mere terrorists. What does this make the Imams allied with them?
Malwiya Minaret
Built in the time of the caliph al-Mutawakkil
The story:
R. Teygeler, "Malwiya, Samarra," in Iraqcrisis, online, April 4, 2005: "... it took me over 2 months to convince the occupying force[r]s in Samarra to retire the snipers on the minaret. ... Not soon after the tower got damaged by the insurgents. Let there be no mistake that this example shows that the insurgents are the ones who damaged their own 1100-year-old splendid ziggurat, a highlight of Iraqi cultural heritage." [actually, this isn't a ziggurat which was a Mesopotamian rectangular, terraced temple tower serving as a pedestal for a temple on top; this minaret (a tower connected with a mosque functioning a bit like a steeple of a church) is almost unique, the few other ones like it are imitations; some early European travelers did mistake it for the Tower of Babel (the ziggurat of Babylon), hence the paintings that use this form for the Biblical building; it may have been inspired by a type of Persian towers]; "Drs René Teygeler[,] former Senior Advisor
