As the war has taken on a more sectarian character, the usually reserved foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, has described Assad's onslaught against his own people as "genocide" and Syrian lands as being "under occupation" — a clear reference to the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces.
The inaugural campaign to retake the problematic city has been named, by the PMU, Labaik ya Hussein, which is a provocative sectarian slogan referencing the death of the Shia spiritual leader Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
Certainly the Football Association wants no truck with songs that reference 35 years of sectarian fighting, and phonecalls were made during the match to ask the England band to stop playing the tune in its repertoire that is habitually co-opted as an anti-IRA anthem.
But there is no doubt that those who commit the violence often do so by reference to their faith and the sectarian nature of the conflict is a sectarianism based on religion.
Are they not your martyrs?" — a reference to those killed in sectarian clashes.
(Little reference is paid to the sectarian divide, except to acknowledge the favor Protestants enjoyed in hiring over Roman Catholics: "If they'd built the boat factory in Rome, the place would've been full of them").
The move against Ayatollah Isa Qassim comes less than a week after a court banned the country's main opposition group, al-Wefaq, accusing it of fomenting sectarian unrest and having links to a foreign power – a clear reference to Iran, which is a fierce critic of Bahrain's Sunni monarchy.
As in Norman Lewis's fascinating World War II diary, "Naples '44," where clever local bosses struck deals with the Allied occupation, in "Gomorrah," the points of reference are less Western Europe than places where local warlords or sectarian tribes have effectively replaced the state.
At last week's summit of the six-state Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), Salman said "foreign powers" - a reference to Iran - were trying to "impose their authority…and spread sectarian strife".
Celtic's statement referenced an attack on former manager Neil Lennon at Tynecastle in 2011 and "continued sectarian abuse directed at Celtic management, staff and players".
