Who are the Sunni Muslims?

While Sunni Muslims constitute on 20% of the population of Iraq, they represent 80-90% of the global Muslim population.

Osama bina Laden is a Sunni Muslim. To him the end of the reign of the caliphs (Ottoman Empire) in the 1920s was catastrophic, as he made clear in a videotape made after 9-11. On the tape, broadcast by Al-Jazeera on October 7, 2001, he proclaimed: "What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted. ... Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more [than] eighty years, of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated."

The Sunni's believe that the first four caliphs--Mohammed's successors--rightfully took his place as the leaders of Muslims. They recognize the heirs of the four caliphs as legitimate religious leaders. These heirs ruled continuously in the Arab world until the break-up of the Ottoman Empire following the end of the First World War.

Shiites, in contrast, believe that only the heirs of the fourth caliph, Ali, are the legitimate successors of Mohammed.

The Ottoman Empire was an imperial power that existed from 1299 to 1923 (634 years), one of the largest empires to rule the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. From 1517 onwards, the Ottoman Sultan was also the Caliph of Islam, and the Ottoman Empire was from 1517 until 1922 (or 1924) synonymous with the Caliphate, the Islamic State.

The Sunni Muslims in Iraq intend to establish a new Ottoman Empire and they will not stop until it's done or they have been destroyed.