Shia–Sunni relations
Shia–Sunni discord in Iraq starts with disagreement over the relative population of the two groups. According to most sources, including the CIA's "World Factbook", the majority of Iraqis are Shia Arab Muslims (60%-70%), and Sunni Arab Muslims represent between 32% and 37% of the population. However, Sunni are split ethnically among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Many Sunnis hotly dispute their minority status, including ex-Iraqi Ambassador Faruq Ziada, and many believe Shia majority is "a myth spread by America". One Sunni belief shared by Jordan's King Abdullah as well as his then Defense Minister Shaalan is that Shia numbers in Iraq were inflated by Iranian Shias crossing the border. Shia scholar Vali Nasr believes the election turnout in summer and December 2005 confirmed a strong Shia majority in Iraq.
Shia–Sunni relations
According to Shia rights watch, in 2014 ISIS forces killed over 1,700 Shia civilians at Camp Speicher in Tikrit Iraq, and 670 Shia prisoners at the detention facility on the outskirts of Mosul. In June 2014, the New York Times wrote that as ISIS has "seized vast territories" in western and northern Iraq, there have been "frequent accounts of fighters’ capturing groups of people and releasing the Sunnis while the Shiites are singled out for execution". The report listed questions ISIS uses to "tell whether a person is a Sunni or a Shiite"—What is your name? Where do you live? How do you pray? What kind of music do you listen to?