These clerics provoked them, you see. They were needlessly provocative. They should have just gone along with what the Taliban wanted. Didn’t they realize that they were offending the Taliban? How offensive!
“Gunmen kill seven in attack on Muslim council in Afghan south: police,” Reuters, May 13, 2015:
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Gunmen opened fire on a gathering of Afghan Muslim clerics in the southern province of Helmand, killing seven people, police said on Wednesday.
The Ulemma Council, the highest religious authority in a deeply conservative country, came under attack after it had repeatedly announced its support for security forces fighting the hard-line Islamist Taliban insurgents.
“The meeting was ongoing when two Taliban gunmen attacked the gathering,” police official Jan Aqa said.
Four civilians and three police were killed and seven people wounded in the attack in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital….