Mohammed Ibrahim, a university student from the village, said militants had warned residents a few days before Friday's attack not to collaborate with security forces. The militants also distributed leaflets several times ordering villagers not to cooperate with security forces and to abandon Sufism, he said. "They threatened him not to hold Sufi gatherings, and last week, they came on motorbikes and asked residents not to participate in Sufi rituals," Darwish said. The bloodshed at the Al-Rawdah mosque was the first major militant attack on a Muslim congregation, and it eclipsed violence in the country dating back to an Islamic militant insurgency in the 1990s. The austere, one-story Al-Rawdah mosque sits on a main road.

Source: Fox News November 27, 2017 05:15 UTC