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KABUL, Afghanistan – Kabul On September 2nd, a suicide attacker posing as a disciple of the unconventional cleric, Mujib Rahman Ansari, detonated a bomb after kissing the cleric’s hand (an indication of devotion). The assault occurred on the Gozargah mosque in Herat, neighboring Iran. It was a transparent case of overkill because it took the lives of 18 individuals, together with a toddler, and wounded 24 others.
This well-known cleric within the South of Afghanistan is the fourth pro-Taliban cleric killed within the span of two months.
The Taliban authorities swiftly denounced the assault. “The nation’s brave and influential scholar was martyred in a brutal, cowardly assault,” Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, stated on Twitter.
No occasion has claimed duty for the assault. Nonetheless, all eyes are on the militant Islamic State (IS) group, also referred to as the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-Okay), which has beforehand threatened the pro-Taliban cleric.
As a powerbroker in Southern Afghanistan, Ansari had made numerous allies and enemies through the years. Over the previous 20 years, he was a loud critic of the previous U.S.-backed Afghan governments. On the time, he was thought of a ferocious supporter of the then Taliban insurgents. He had brazenly known as for the beheading of these opposing the return of the Taliban to energy.
Regardless of his criticism of the previous Afghan authorities, he had shut ties with Ismail Khan, a widely known and influential warlord in Herat, who was an ally of the U.S.-supported Afghan authorities. It’s believed that the ethnically Tajik Ismail Khan supported and introduced the Tajik Ansari to prominence to curtail the affect of the closely Pashtun Taliban group in Southern Afghanistan, the Taliban’s heartlands.
Many analysts consider there may be an ethnic angle to this, as Ansari had repeatedly requested the Taliban management to nominate Tajik members of the group in Herat as an alternative of Pashtuns. There are competing factions inside the Taliban. The 2 distinguished ones are the pro-establishment group led by the son of the founding father of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, and the extra radical faction led by the extremist Haqqani community. It’s rumored that the Haqqani community wasn’t a fan of Ansari and a few of his stands.
The truth that Ansari was focused proper after leaving a gathering with the distinguished Taliban chief Abdul Ghani Baradar has raised a number of questions. The truth that Ansari had not denounced the U.S.-backed warlord, Ismail Khan, actively preventing in opposition to the Taliban, did not sit effectively with the Taliban both.
The governments of Pakistan and Iran rapidly condemned the assaults to proactively forestall any questions from being raised about their position within the assault since Ansari had beforehand criticized these regimes.
It’s exhausting to inform if the information behind the killing of Ansari will ever come to mild, however what is evident is that the safety scenario within the nation is deteriorating, which is the one factor that the Afghan public hoped for after the takeover of the federal government by the Taliban in August of final yr.
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