The NY Times headline and lede:
"Iraqi Liquor Store Owners Fear Fundamentalists' Rise"
Luckily it was mostly beer - 6,000 cans of it - that was shot up Sunday. But the liquor distributor in Baghdad was hit with a full-scale assault: several cars and a minivan full of masked men with guns and grenades sprayed the building with hundreds of rounds. Fifty workers and customers huddled for safety on a second floor as it was raked with bullets.
What is going on? Eventually we learn that the Mahdi militia, still loyal to Sadr, have:
...been handing out leaflets in Sadr City, the poor Shiite slum named for two of his relatives, listing nine categories of crimes for which the penalty is death.
"It is allowed to kill: 1. hijackers 2. kidnappers 3. thieves who are trying to disrupt safe family life 4. collaborators, spies and terrorists from Al Qaeda, Wahhabis and Saddamists," the proclamation reads. It goes on to list prostitutes, pimps, pornography sellers, gamblers - and those who sell alcohol.
Gee, point (4) seems very interesting - the militia is targetting Al Qaeda? Yes it is, but we must read on to find this buried quote describing the leaflet:
That was the intention," said Sayeed Rahim al-Alaq, deputy head of the committee that drafted the list of offenses. "We are with the government. We are antiterrorists."
In upcoming series, we expect the Times to alert us to the free speech problems faced by porn shop operators. Meanwhile, this sort of news can remain hidden and our follow-up questions (for example, are there any actual reports of Al Qaeda being captured or killed?) can remain unasked.
More from the story, starting at paragraph 13:
What makes the declaration notable is that it seems to combine several elements of Mr. Sadr's power and political stance: it threatens physical force not only on behalf of issues popular among many devout Shiites, but also, in what may be a gesture to the new interim government, against some of the same enemies of the American and Iraqi forces: kidnappers, hard-core Hussein loyalists and members of Al Qaeda.
"That was the intention," said Sayeed Rahim al-Alaq, deputy head of the committee that drafted the list of offenses. "We are with the government. We are antiterrorists."
The proclamation was drafted with the consent of 28 tribal chiefs loyal to Mr. Sadr, so its edicts carry some of the trappings of traditional tribal law. Tribal leaders have been allowed to dispense justice apart from Iraq's legal system, especially in the past decade as Mr. Hussein tried to win them over.
"Luckily it was mostly beer - 6,000 cans of it - that was shot up Sunday."
6,000 cans of beer?
Oh, the humanity!
"We are with the government. We are antiterrorists." We are here to help you...
Posted by: The Kid | July 16, 2004 at 07:47 PM