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Iraq’s Bashiqa brings back the booze to clear IS hangover

Surrounded by the ruins of pastel-coloured buildings still bearing slogans glorifying the Islamic State's "caliphate", Wissam Ghanem is having a slow day selling beer, vodka and whisky. Iraqi forces expelled the jihadists from his town of Bashiqa, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Mosul, in December but it was badly damaged and few people […]

Marisol Rifai writes for AFP:

Surrounded by the ruins of pastel-coloured buildings still bearing slogans glorifying the Islamic State's "caliphate", Wissam Ghanem is having a slow day selling beer, vodka and whisky.

Iraqi forces expelled the jihadists from his town of Bashiqa, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Mosul, in December but it was badly damaged and few people have returned.

"Only about 40 families have come back. There's still no electricity nor water and schools haven't reopened yet," Ghanem said in his little shop, wearing the traditional sherwal baggy trousers.