Nine people died yesterday when gunmen (thought to be Shi’ites)
shot up 12 liquor stores in Baghdad. The killers approached their targets in
SUVs, raking shops and supermarkets with gunfire. Most of their victims were Yazidi
Kurds. Since their syncretic faith (Sufism and Zoroastrianism) takes a liberal
line on alcohol, most of Baghdad’s liquor stores are staffed by Yazidis.
Did the gunmen see themselves as Untouchables, blasting seven bells of hell out of Prohibition hooch?
For that truly authentic experience, instead of SUVs they could have hired an
armour plated Cadillac and stood on the running boards brandishing their Tommy
guns. Al Capone meets Al Qaeda. Shame if a few bootleggers caught a round of
lead and ended up dead of the post-modern condition.
Meanwhile in Makhachkala, capital of the federated Russian
republic of Dagestan (North Caucasus), anti-alcohol terrorism looks more straightforward.
Naïve by comparison, like a bunch of schoolboys out shoplifting.
Here they come now, including the one in a bright red anorak
(must have missed the class entitled ‘the importance of being unobtrusive’).
They almost collide with the security guard as he saunters out through the shop
doorway. Anorak pulls a gun, drops him – suddenly the guard’s legs and feet are
poking back into the CCTV frame. Furtively, the three boys enter the shop and
drop a bag with a bomb in it behind the nearest counter. Then scuttle out
again. On their way out, did they grab a few sticks of chocolate and shove it
up their jumpers?
Outside, on the other side of the street, another CCTV camera
records the smoke and dust as the shop windows are blown out. Next: the
security guard is lying largely where he was before; still flattened, his face
now blackened, encircled by shop debris – bits of a wire trolley, twisted light
fittings and shelving. Woven together with autumn leaves, this rubbish forms a
bargain basement wreath around him.
Baghdad, it seems, is blessed with a better class of terrorist.
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