As the siege deepened, I walked through a nearby working-class neighbourhood with Griff Witte, a correspondent with the Washington Post. We happened upon a government clerk at the modest house he shared with two brothers. Traumatised after days of gunfire, they visibly struggled to make sense of events. ‘This is the cause of the Jews in your country,’ Rabbani said, stabbing a finger at Griff. ‘Everything is in the control of the Jews.’ It struck me that he wasn’t necessarily a fanatic – just a poor, disillusioned man with limited prospects, prone to prejudice and conspiracy theories, who,
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