Oh shit...

Needlenose, had this link from IraqSlogger and if true this is bad, bad news:

Meanwhile, unsubstantiated rumors were abound in Najaf that the life of senior Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani was in danger and that he was transferred in an ambulance to the general hospital of Najaf after he complained from chest pain and lost consciousness twice, according to the Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi and Al-Melaf Net websites. An anonymous Iraqi physician told the Iraq News Agency that Sistani’s bureau is attempting to prevent the news of Sistani’s health deterioration from leaking out to the media for “internal Shi’ite considerations,” adding that Sistani is in intensive care with full medical supervision. Other residents said that the government smuggled the aging cleric out of the city for fear that he would be attacked by Sadrist followers who were rallying in the hundreds of thousands in Najaf, while other senior clerics were placed under close protection.

And then there is this:

NAJAF, Iraq - Flying banners that said "No, no to the occupation," tens of thousands of followers of the anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr staged a peaceful rally Monday in one of Iraq's holiest cities, where they burned American and Israeli flags and called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq.

But there were ominous signs afterward that al-Sadr's enormous Mahdi Army militia may be preparing for renewed violence in Baghdad.

Monday evening, as protesters returned in trucks and buses to Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, a McClatchy Newspapers reporter saw men in several buses carrying pistols and AK-47s, a violation of new security laws. One man who identified himself as a Mahdi Army member bragged that weapons were being taken from Najaf to Baghdad hidden in truck beds.

By now the shit has buried the fan.