Some technicalities

Ever since the Iraq war, the genral American is happy that he/she has learned one more thing about the world outside basketball and (American) football team.. - That "Moslems, are of three types - Sunnis, Shias and the Kurds..."

Wait a minute .. Sunni-Shia is an exclusive and along-religious-lines divison, where as Kurds are an ethnic group.. Or in other words

*Kurds need not be Muslims
* Muslims have to be Shia or Sunni

(Even practices like Sufism, Whabism, **usually** falls easily into either of Shias or Sunnis )

Have been wanting to look up the exact details for a long time.. and here they are :

Wiki says

The majority of the Kurds are Sunni Muslims, belonging to the Shafi and Hanafi Schools of Islam. There is also a significant minority of Kurds that are Shia Muslims, and they primarily live in the Kermanshah and Ilam provinces of Iran and Central Iraq ("Al-Fayliah" Kurds). Another religious minority among the Kurds are the Alevis, who are mainly found in Turkey. The remaining Kurds are mostly either Christians, Kurdish Jews, Yazidis or Agnosticists.

So the classification shud idealy be


1) Arab - Shias
2) Other - Shias (other incl a small no: of kurd-Shias as well)
Arab-shias as much much more predominant

Total Shias- About 65%

3) Arab- Sunnis :Mostly Hanafi School ~12-15%

So total Arabs ~ 75%

4) Kurd - Sunnis : Mostly Shafi School ~ 18-20%

Total Sunnis ~ 30-35%

Even though perhaps the general GK~0 American has not cared to check facts, as usual, their intelligence and military agencies have the facts clear cut

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/religion.htm