In Iraq's southern city of Basra, about 50 armed members...

In Iraq's southern city of Basra, about 50 armed members of firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's personal militia snatched about 20 people on July 26 during raids against people selling and drinking alcohol, police said.
The detainees were later handed over to police. During the raids, militiamen dragged men out of their houses and smashed cartons of canned drinks, apparently beer, Al-Arabiya TV showed in broadcast footage.
This was the latest in a series of attacks on liquor stores around the country that have raised fears that militant Islam is taking advantage of the unsettled political situation to impose its will.
Ten days previous to this attack, al-Sadr's militia attacked a store in Baghdad's Sadr City with grenades and bullets. In the neighbourhood the militias had already published a proclamation, signed by 28 tribal chieftains loyal to al-Sadr, listing nine crimes punishable by the death penalty, including the sale of alcohol.
The proclamation also authorizes the killing of hijackers, kidnappers, robbers that pose a danger to family life, collaborators, Al Qaeda spies and terrorists (of wahhabite faith), Saddam loyalists, prostitutes and pimps, those who sell pornography, gamblers, and those who sell alcohol.
"These episodes are clearly aimed to put pressure on the provisional government, that could be pushed to declare alcohol illegal," HOC Secretary General Sergio D'Elia said.
"More importantly they show what kind of society Iraq would become if al-Sadr's pro-Iranian militia were to prevail and impose their politics based on the strict observance of Islamic precepts."