KABUL // It was just after sunset on March 7 when the men carrying pistols fitted with silencers entered a mosque on Kabul’s outskirts. In front of them stood 13 Sufis in the middle of the Maghrib prayer, reciting the Quran.
The gunmen opened fire, aiming at the heads of each one. As their victims lay bleeding on the floor, they emptied more rounds into their bodies. The attackers then fled into the dusk, leaving dozens of shell casings behind.
This account of events was given to The National by Ustad Farid Ahmad Fazeli, who worships at the mosque and arrived on the scene soon afterwards – when people told him what had happened.
“It was nice that they didn’t attack on a Friday because they might have killed us all,” he said.
The systematic shooting of civilians at prayer was unusually brutal even for Afghanistan, where violence has long been common but sectarianism has not. Weeks later, people are still wondering whether it is a sign of bigger problems to come. Other incidents including the kidnapping of dozens of Shiites in the south have only added to these concerns.
Rumours of divisions within the Taliban, indications that ISIL is trying to gain a foothold in the country and the still limited but growing popularity of Salafism are all issues now developing here.
Eleven men were killed in the attack, including the pir – a Sufi religious leader – his son, a man from Tajikistan and the imam. One of the two survivors was wounded, while the other escaped unhurt after falling to the floor and being covered by a body.
The names of the dead are displayed on a banner that is hung from a wall in the mosque’s yard, where the pir and his son have been buried. Police were on guard day and night when The National visited the building, built more than 30 years ago in the Company neighbourhood of Kabul.
The number of attackers remains unclear and no group has claimed responsibility. At least part of the incident should have been caught on security cameras at the mosque’s gate but the area experienced a power cut at the time, causing the CCTV to stop working.
Much of Afghan society has been changed irrevocably by a relentless series of wars that arose from a communist coup in 1978 and the subsequent Soviet invasion.
But even as traditional tribal structures were destroyed and mujaheddin parties came to prominence, religious minorities have rarely been singled out for violent persecution.
Afghanistan is a Sunni-majority country, and while most people follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, other sects and schools of thought have generally coexisted peacefully – with some exceptions.
Shiites in particular suffered under the hardline interpretation of Islam enforced by the Taliban regime but Mr Fazeli said the Sufi mosque in Company had no serious problems then.
Now there are signs that opinions once regarded as radical are moving into the mainstream. If the kind of sectarianism often seen in other countries is still rare, fundamentalist views are common.
Last Thursday a woman was beaten and burnt to death in the centre of Kabul by a mob who falsely accused her of desecrating the Quran, provoking a mixture of condemnation and praise from different sections of society.
In the days after the attack on the Sufis in Company, the imam of a nearby Salafi mosque was detained for questioning by the Afghan intelligence service. He had spoken in the past about his opposition to democracy and Shia Islam.
Some Hanafi clerics are also increasingly critical of practices they regard as un-Islamic, such as celebrating the Persian New Year.
Mufti Shamsur Rahman Frotan regularly discusses religious issues on Afghan television. He said he was against Sufism but violence was not the answer. He doubted the Salafi imam was behind the shootings in Company, however, and described the attack as part of a “hidden plan” to start a sectarian war in Afghanistan, without specifying who he thought was behind the conspiracy.
Mr Frotan said religious scholars needed to be aware of these dangers or the future would be “very dark”.
“We only need the first bullet to be shot for a war to start between us, just as it started in Pakistan and elsewhere a long time ago. “
One of the mufti’s fears, that Shiites will be the next target, has already shown early signs of coming true. In February, 31 Shiites were kidnapped by masked gunmen in Zabul province. Efforts by officials and local elders to release them are continuing.
All of this has only added to a sense of paranoia sparked by speculation about ISIL’s presence in Afghanistan. There have been frequent reports of the group emerging in different parts of the country, but it is not clear yet if it poses a serious threat.
The United Nations has said ISIL’s military capabilities in Afghanistan are less of a concern than “its potential to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rally”. The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, has warned that that the group “swallows its competitors”.
Sayed Ghaffar Adali Husseini, a member of the Shia Ulema Council, said a “new war” was developing in the country and called on the government to protect the nation from outside interference.
“These are not religious problems and differences,” he said. “They are political problems arising from the political interests of strangers.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
