Minutes after he took a seat among hundreds of religious scholars at a ceremony for the Prophet Mohammad's birthday in Kabul, a huge explosion shook the room, throwing Ahmad Fareed to the floor.
Scattered around him were the bloodied bodies of turbaned men who had taken the full force of the suicide blast and probably saved his life.
"It was absolute horror, people dead and wounded, covered in blood and pieces of flesh," Fareed, 40, told AFP on Wednesday as he lay in a hospital bed with leg and shoulder injuries.
"My friend and his little son were also next to me, covered in blood and not moving."
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