Ominous pattern? Absolutely. The brothers of two leadiing Sunni politicians in Iraq, arguably the two leading Sunnis, were found murdered in quick succession. First, Taha al-Mutlaq, brother of Salah al-Mutlaq (who heads a neo-Baathist political party), was kidnapped and found killed. Then, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, whose brother Tariq al-Hashimi heads the Iraqi Islamic Party (linked to the Muslim Brotherhood), was killed while driving through Baghdad. This is serious stuff. Who's doing this? Very unlikely that it is the Iraqi resistance or Zarqawi's forces; far more likely, it is the work of Shiite death squads tied to one of the militias or to the Interior Ministry's commandos.