Editorializing with conjunctions

Consider this sentence:

While Bariti is a predominantly Pandist country, there is a significant Kulbite minority as well as a large Ranzi prescence in the country.

Now, which of these statements do you think is accurate?

1. Kulbitism and Ranz are sects of Pandism.
2. Kulbitism is a sect of Pandism, but Ranz is a different religion.
3. Pandism, Kulbitism, and Ranz are three different religions.
4. Bariti's religions are confusing to me!

I asked this question at work, and got thirty answers. Twenty-six people (86.7%) chose option 3, one (3.3%) chose option 2, and the rest (three, 10%) chose option 4. No one chose option 1.

The truth is, however, that option 1 is right. Why do I say that? Because this sentence was taken, with the names altered, from this week's Stratfor Security Weekly. The original read:

While Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, there is a significant Shiite minority as well as a large Sufi presence in the country.

So what's going on? It's deceptively simple - or perhaps I should say "deceptive - simply."

The Stratfor people will say that they're only pointing out that the Muslim population in Afghanistan isn't monolithic, but the sentence reads - look at the Bariti sentence again - as if Shi'a and Sufis aren't Muslim by anybody's standards, not just those of the hardcore Deobandi Sunnis in the Taliban. It's the "while" that does it.

While is a subordinating conjunction with two meanings. The first is a simple temporal "at the same time", but the second is as contrastive, synonymous with "although". You see how my coworkers interpreted it, and you know how you did. Look at these:

While Afghanistan is a predominantly Muslim country, there is a significant Buddhist minority as well as a large Christian presence in the country.

While the US is a predominantly Christian country, there is a significant Catholic minority as well as a large Mormon presence in the country.

See how it works? Nice, isn't it?

In fact, one of my coworkers said "I would definitely interpret this as a piece of quite biased/slanted reporting because of this phrasing."