AFP

A leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (who the U.S. military had claimed was dead) is now threatening Iran with terrorist attacks. Omar al-Baghdadi, the apparently non-dead leader of this al Qaeda affiliate, said the following in a recent audio recording:

We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shia government and to stop direct and indirect intervention ... otherwise a severe war is waiting for you."

And he also issued a threat aimed at his fellow Sunnis:

We advise and warn every Sunni businessman inside Iran or in Arab countries especially in the Gulf not to take partnership with any Shia Iranian businessman, this is part of the two-month period."

This certainly complicates things, doesn't it? I suspect that al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic State of Iraq, which have been trying to patch up a frayed relationship of late, are focusing on a pair of enemies both groups can agree upon: Iran and the Shiites.