KABUL: A harrowing picture of a four-year-old standing alone in the premises, with policemen taking cover behind a doorway, calling and waving to him has taken the internet by storm. Ali Ahmad was left traumatised after ISIS terrorists attacked a mosque in Kabul and he saw his grandfather murdered. He was in the Shiite Imam Zaman mosque when militants massacred 28 men last week.
At least four attackers in police uniforms stormed in the premises, with three of them firing indiscriminately at hundreds of worshippers inside, and one exploding a suicide-bomb vest. Ali's father Sayed Bashir said he was nearby the mosque, and when the initial blast was heard, he immediately ran to check on his family. “Right after the explosion I though everything was finished. I called my father's mobile phone number and my son answered and said, 'They killed grandpa'. We were running everywhere in search of my son but the police were stopping us and didn't let us get too close,” he said. “I lost hope. I said to myself that everything was finished. I tried the number again but it was switched off,” Bashir said.
Ali had saved himself, running around behind the mosque, disregarding security authorities who signalled him. He was rescued later. Bashir said Ali is still traumatised and has difficulty coping with what happened. “After the incident, my son has some problems. He's scared a lot at night,” he said. The mosque attack is the latest in a series of activities targeting Shiite mosques.
The attack, the latest in a series targeting Shiite mosques, was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan, the local branch of Islamic State which takes the name of an old region that included what is now Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, at least 62 civilians have been killed and 119 injured in six separate attacks on Shiite mosques this year.
