Gang members and militia fighters associated with a coalition linked to Iran have escalated attacks on liquor stories — most owned by Christians and Yazidis — in Baghdad, Iraq, the Kurdish outlet Rudaw reported Sunday.
Members of groups associated with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Iran-backed Shiite coalition, have taken responsibility for some of the attacks, which have largely consisted of bombings. The PMF rose to heightened prominence in the Iraqi government during the war against the Sunni Islamic State jihadist group that began in 2014. Given the incompetence of the Iraqi military, Baghdad formally legalized the PMF as a wing of Iraq’s armed forces in 2018 and allowed PMF leaders into the inner circle of federal power during the ISIS fight.
Since the fall of the Islamic State caliphate, however, leaders of some of the most violent Shiite jihadist groups in the PMF have refocused their mission towards attacking American assets in Iraq and persecuting Christians and other ethnic minorities. Reports have surfaced in the past two years of PMF fighters blocking native Christian and Yazidi civilians from returning to formerly ISIS-held areas.
In Baghdad, PMF jihadists appear to be turning their attacks towards liquor store owners. Alcohol is haram, or prohibited, in Islam, making the business particularly profitable since supply is typically low.
According to Rudaw, Baghdad has experienced attacks on 14 separate liquor stories in the past two months, killing at least three business owners. Farouq Jamal, a longtime liquor store owner in the city, told the Kurdish outlet local roving gangs unaffiliated with jihadist groups have been a staple of the Baghdad liquor industry for over a decade, but that gangs typically only ask for bribes in exchange for not attacking the business owners.
“They are gangs. They existed before and are still here. They set explosions, they smash shops, and they set on fire stores, bars, and massage centres,” Jamal explained. He lamented that the “government has no control over” many of these groups, including those behind the most recent attacks.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, another shop owner, Abu Rami, expressed panic that the attacks have become more frequent and violent.
“Everyone is afraid,” Rami told the Qatari broadcaster. “Customers are scared to come to the shop. This is the only source of money for me and my family.”
Unlike the typical gang intimidation, Rudaw reported that PMF militias have publicly announced their role in attacking the stores this year. Other reports have stated that newly founded groups separate from the PMF, but believed to be closely tied to the militia coalition, have issued public statements taking responsibility for the attacks.
One of those groups, according to al-Monitor, identified itself as “People of the Good” in a statement on December 14 in which it urged Baghdad police to stay away from liquor stores to avoid casualties.
“After the number of security forces increased to protect these stores, we call on them to move away from them, because we will continue targeting them until the land of Baghdad is cleared of their filth,” the statement read in part.
Al-Monitor reported that “People of the Good” was “widely believed to be affiliated with Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah,” one of the PMF’s deadliest jihadist groups. Kataib Hezbollah is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. The founder of the militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was the target of a fatal airstrike by U.S. forces in January that also eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
Jamal, the shop owner, told Rudaw that firebombing bars and liquor stores was a common Baghdad criminal activity for years. Other shop owners speaking to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) last week expressed concern that the recent attacks were more systematic attempts to eradicate non-Muslims and even more liberal Muslims who do not strictly follow sharia, or the Islamic law. These reports echo concerns about the presence of the PMF.
“These groups want the last of the Christians to leave the country. They’re targeting us,” a man AFP identified only as “Andre,” whose liquor store was the subject of one of the recent firebombings, told the outlet.
“We are all that’s left of a liberal lifestyle,” another anonymous shop owner told AFP. “There are attempts to kill this ancient side of Baghdad — if they win, Baghdad will have lost its liberal side.”
Rudaw noted that some of the groups conducting the attacks had ties to the PMF; AFP relayed the detail that some, while not nominally members of the PMF, waved the coalition’s flag while attacking the stores.
The AFP report also noted that the attacks have occurred simultaneously with an official government crackdown on “unlicensed” liquor stores and bars — nearly 100 of which have shut down since October. While many countries around the world have shut down bars, restaurants, and other social businesses in an alleged attempt to limit the spread of the Chinese coronavirus, the Iraqi government did not indicate that the pandemic was behind the campaign against the “unlicensed” sites.
The government has not paired its efficiency in shutting down the stores and bars with successful attempts to stop the firebombings.
The PMF have surfaced in multiple reports of Christian persecution nationwide in the aftermath of the fall of the ISIS “caliphate.” Last year, former vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Kristina Arriaga accused the PMF of attempting to “finish what ISIS started” against Christians and other religious minorities. The USCIRF had documented evidence of widespread abuses by the PMF against Christians displaced by ISIS and attempting to return home in Nineveh, a northern Iraqi province with a prominent Christian population.
“Iranian-backed militias are occupying many of the formerly Christian towns and making it virtually impossible for Christians to come back in,” Carl Anderson, the CEO of the Knights of Columbus, also warned that year after returning from Nineveh. “What ISIS failed to accomplish, that is to have a religious cleansing of Christians in the area, Iran, through their surrogates, may accomplish still.”
U.S. military officials praised the PMF in 2017 for their work fighting the Islamic State. Shiite and Sunni jihadist organizations often find themselves in violent conflict due to differences in their Islamic dogma. PMF factions openly stated that American troops were targets for them that year in addition to their ISIS foes.
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