Baghdad, Iraq ? A white flier taped to sand-colored walls has infused the markets with fear in the northeastern city of Baquba and the western Sunni city of Fallujah. The flier is signed by the mujahedeen (holy warriors), and it will be enforced with arson, or worse, this week.

“Every pharmacy, store or vehicle will be burned if they are caught with Iranian merchandise,” a flier in Fallujah said. “And if the owner of the burned vehicle or the store or the pharmacy tried to transfer these goods again, then he will be punished according to the laws of God. He will be considered a collaborator with the killer.”

Earlier this year it was Danish products that disappeared from Iraqi shelves after a controversial Danish cartoon ignited rage across the Muslim world. Now, in Sunni areas of Iraq, the rage turns against Iran. E-mails and text messages pass the word:

“Every penny you spend on an Iranian product turns into a bullet an Iraqi gets killed by, or pours fuel on the fire of strife.”

Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, neighboring Iran has become one of the closest allies of the Shiite-controlled government. Iran’s Shiite theocracy was once Iraq’s greatest adversary when Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, ruled.

Back then, Iran’s goods were smuggled over the border. Now they flood into Iraq through five trade routes in the Shiite south and Kurdish north. The goods are popular because their prices are cheap. They overwhelm markets in Shiite cities, but many Sunnis already shun them as enemy-made merchandise.

The alliance with Iran has not been kind to Iraqi Sunnis. Shiite death squads, partly funded by Iran, have targeted Sunni men, who show up dead, their bodies tortured and their hands handcuffed behind their backs.

As the nation unravels into Sunni and Shiite sectors, the Sunni-backed insurgency has revived in cities such as Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, and Fallujah, the isolated Sunni city west of the capital.

Mohammed Hassan al-Kazzaz, head of the Iraqi Chamber of Commerce, said that China and Iran are the biggest exporters to Iraq. Iran gives Iraqi importers a six-month grace period to pay for merchandise, he said. He predicts that the boycott will fail because demand for the goods is too high. In the southern port city of Basra the markets are filled with Iranian merchandise.

“The Shiite and Kurds are 80 percent of the population, the rest of the population won’t affect one thing,” Kazzaz said.

In the mayor’s office in Baquba, Khaled al-Sanjari confessed that he can’t protect the merchants. To save themselves, they must get rid of Iranian goods.

“Iran wants to fight the Americans by using Iraqi people and not Iranian … those who made this threat wanted to send a clear message to the Iranians not to interfere in Iraqi matters,” Sanjari, a Sunni, said.

“Most of the shop owners will obey. Some of them may be killed. We cannot save everyone.”