I just read that there are unconfirmed reports that leading Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is dead. This hasn’t been confirmed yet by any of the major news services but if true could be a major event in the ongoing bloody conflict between Sunni Muslims and Shi’ite Muslims in the Baghdad area and across Iraq and even beyond.

Sistani was known for his more peaceful approach to resolving disagreement as opposed to Muqtada al-Sadr who has been burning Sunni Mosques and waging a terrorist campaign in Sunni neighborhoods in a personal power struggle within Iraq.

It may be one thing if he's died of natural causes, but if he has in fact been killed what has appeared as a civil war in the making could quickly become all out war in the region.