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“We are increasingly losing our customers because of the security situation, a lot of them fled the country,” said Saad, a Christian who runs a liquor store in Baghdad’s Karrada district and asked to be identified by his first name for security reasons.

Liquor merchants, already soft targets for militants in recent years, are paying $15,000 per truck to Shiite militia leaders who control roads into the capital, Anwar al-Yezidi, a liquor distributor, said by phone from Baghdad.

The main routes for Iraqi merchants to import alcohol used to run from Jordan and Turkey. The former is now completely closed, as it required trucks to go through Anbar province, largely controlled by Islamic State.

Trucks carrying drink from Turkey have been forced to use old and unpaved roads through Kurdish regions along the Iranian border to areas controlled by Shiite militias, in effect circling around the city, said al-Yezidi. “We have no choice but to pay them in order to bring the liquors to our customers,” he said.

When ISIS militants seized Mosul they attacked the city’s Christian community, forcing thousands to flee, according to Emile Shimoun Nona, the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul.

Liquor stores in Baghdad have also repeatedly come under attack, forcing many to close and forcing up prices. In December, gunmen attacked several stores and killed nine people.

“Nothing is free, owners pay ransoms and free alcohol to these army checkpoints in exchange for protection,” said Ahmed Shukur, a resident of Ameriya neighborhood in the west of Baghdad and a consumer himself.

The threat of attack has forced many drinkers indoors or into exclusive social clubs, which are protected by private security companies and which typically charge a yearly membership rate of $2,000, according to Khalid al-Halaly, a member of the Hunting Club in the wealthy Mansur district of Baghdad. A city-wide curfew means these clubs close at 11.30 p.m.

Shukur, who used to pay $1.50 for a bottle of knock-off vodka, is now paying $5 and is faced with the prospect of drinking less. “It has become very unaffordable,” he said in a phone interview.

Bloomberg News