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April 30th, 2024 | 3:33 AM ET

‘The Enemy is Everywhere’: Afghans Mourn Dead As Attacks Mount

Kabul, Afghanistan
Posted: October 22nd, 2017

KABUL, Afghanistan – On an otherwise ordinary Friday evening, a stranger entered the Imam Zaman mosque in West Kabul, just as worshippers were completing the evening prayer.

Unnoticed in the crowd, he detonated the explosives hidden in his vest, killing at least 50 people – including a 14-year-old boy in the eighth grade –and injuring another 50. By the next morning, the strange man was identified as Abu Ammar al-Turkmani. He had been sent to the mosque, full of worshippers from Afghanistan’s Shi’a minority, by the local branch of the Iraq and Syria-based so-called Islamic State group.

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