Erdan Alit sat at a café sipping a cup of strong, gritty coffee and taking in the view from the shade of the terrace. He took a drag from his cigarette which had been left resting on the ashtray in front of him and cast his eyes across the busy junction toward the historic alsalam min al'islam mosque which had been decked out in green balloons and around which a large crowd had turned out to greet Salman Yasser Fated.
As part of his campaign the Islamic Peoples’ Party candidate was visiting major Islamic institutions, partly as a show of religious devotion, but for the most part in order to win the backing of authoritative and influential communal leaders.
He had won the right to run for the IPP after his softer faction had narrowly won the argument at Party Congress that only a candidate that was able to appeal to the more moderate minded Saheristanis would be able to swing sufficient votes from Ashkan to have a hope of victory. Unfortunately for Salman they had underestimated the wariness of the country’s moderates and had suffered the further set back that private Party polling had shown that religious hardliners were lukewarm on him at best with some actively opposed to his candidacy. This was the reason for his grand tour of Saheristan’s major mosques and madrassas; it also provided the Lakhzov Prefecture with the ideal conditions for swaying the vote in favour of President Ashkan.
The crowds began to part as Fated emerged from the building, his body guards clearing a path for him. His car pulled around the corner from the parking garage where it had been kept during his visit and he gave one last wave to the attendees before opening the rear door and climbing into the vehicle. The car travelled a short distance along the road then began to turn onto the junction at which point Erdan removed his cell phone from his jacket pocket and casually scrolled through the contacts list, selected one of the stored numbers and dialled it. A second later a deafening explosion rocked the junction, a blast wave knocking over pedestrians and shattering windows as the bomb Edan’s team had concealed within the rear seat cushion detonated.
There were screams and shouts as people began running, some away from the scene and others towards the twisted burning metal frame of the car. Taking advantage of the chaos Erdan rose stubbed out his cigarette and left the table. He casually removed the SIM card from his phone and swapped it out for a new one. He made his way down an alley at the side of the café to where a scooter had been parked; mounting this and donning a helmet he was soon driving at speed away from the scene towards a safe house the other side of town, there he would destroy the old sim card and make contact with his handler.
The mission so far had gone exactly according to plan. Whether it would have the desired effect of causing the collapse of the IPP and the transfer of its voters to Ashkan would depend entirely on the success of the second part currently being carried out by another team of agents.
Later that day a video that had been sent to Al-Šāṭi News also began circulating on social media. In it three masked men bearing automatic weapons, the lead one also holding a Quran, appeared in front of a green flag emblazoned in white with the Shahada. The one holding the Quran began to deliver their message “We the true guardians of Saheristan’s holy Islamic tradition today struck down a mortal enemy who had raised himself up in our midst. Though he draped himself in the Islam’s banner he was no friend of Allah, rather he was a product of the wicked sinfulness of modernity attempting to lead our holy brothers and sisters astray.
As true caretakers of our peoples’ moral health we could not stand by while this Djinn and his perfidious followers engineered the takeover of the Islamic Peoples’ Party, in order that he could end its role as the bastion of Islamic virtue in our society and use it to spread his corrupted takfiri doctrine among the faithful of our land.
In shāʾallāh The Islamic Peoples’ Party will never fall to the forces of darkness masquerading as moderate Islam.
Allahu Akbar!”
Erdan watched the video on social media. “That ought to do it.” He thought to himself.
