Gunmen target liquor store

MUSLIM gunmen sprayed bullets and lobbed grenades at a liquor store in central Baghdad yesterday before kidnapping the owner’s brother-in-law in the fifth such attack this week, staff and police said.

Police on the scene arrested five of the gang, who claimed to belong to the Mehdi Army, the private militia of radical Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, but another five escaped with their hostage, Haider Ahmed Hassan, 30.

“This is the fifth attack in the past week against an alcohol store in this area and the first in broad daylight,” said police Sergeant Haider Kadum in the predominantly Christian district of Karrada.