In January 2014, ISIS declared Raqqa the capital of the new caliphate. In March, ISIS blew up the Iranian outpost in Raqqa. It had long been desecrated, with graffiti on the walls declaring it a Sunni mosque; the portraits of Khomeini and Khamenei were removed and destroyed. After the explosions, Hezbollah and Iran could justify their involvement in the war in Syria by claiming they had to protect Shia shrines. Groups like ISIS and other Islamists could brandish sites as proof that Iran was trying to take over Sunni land. A religious war had been invented by men hungry for power, land, and
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