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.

Fellow Sergeant Mohamed Zaydan warned that such targeted attacks are unlikely to stop.

Shattered glass and leaking beer cans littered the front of the store.

“It happened without warning,” said Moid Faris, an accountant, who witnessed the attack.

“They are against this kind of business,” the 35-year-old said.

The dirty, white stone front of the shop, which stocked boxes of beer cans, was pitted with bullet holes, while a car and lorry parked in the protected courtyard outside were badly damaged in the attack.

The store, which resembled a warehouse, employs 20 people and has been in business for 25 years. This was the first time it had been hit, staff said.

“They just want to damage our business and hurt our people,” said Luay Mehdi, 19, the shop owner’s son.

“They shouted at us that this line of work was forbidden by our religion, but we will not stop”, declared Mehdi, a Shiite.

On Saturday in the city of Baquba, 36 miles northwest of Baghdad, four liquor stores were blown up almost simultaneously. One of the attacks killed a passerby.

In May, four alcohol sellers were flogged and paraded through the powerkeg Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, for failing to rid their shops of alcohol.