New al-Qaida in Iraq chief warns of "dark days soaked in blood"

"Wait for the long gloomy nights and dark days soaked with blood," said Abu Suleiman, addressing Iraq's "polytheistic rejecters," an insulting term for Shiites common among extremist Sunnis. "What is happening to you nowadays is just a drizzle." The written message was posted on militant websites Friday.  One of the major doctrinal disputes between Sunnis and Shiites can be traced back to the first three rulers of the Muslim community after the Prophet Muhammad. Shiites reject those first three successors as illegitimate.  Al-Qaida attacks on Shiite shrines in 2006 plunged the country into a bloody cycle of mutual sectarian attacks. A measure of fragile calm, however, has returned to Iraq in the past two years.  There are fears that with the new round of attacks, mostly targeting Shiites, al-Qaida is hoping to provoke a backlash against Sunnis and re-ignite the sectarian warfare that brought the country to the brink of civil war.