Juan Cole is following breaking news about the bombing of the headquarters of the Badr Brigade, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

Since the militias are overwhelmingly Shiite and Kurd, and the resistance is largely Sunni Arab, this was an announcement that the former were going to be used to hunt down the resisters among the latter. Presumably today’s bombing is the Sunni Arab nationalist response to that threat.

Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of inter-militia fighting…