http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/international/middleeast/27afgh.html?hp

New York Times

June 27, 2004

Blast Kills 2 Afghan Women on Election Workers' Bus

By CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 26 - Two Afghan women were killed, and at least 11 more people were wounded Saturday morning when a bomb ripped through a bus carrying women working as election registration workers in the eastern city of Jalalabad. A 5-year-old girl was among the wounded.

It was the most serious attack to date on Afghan election workers who are seeking to register millions of people across the country for September's elections.

A Taliban spokesman immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to Reuters, saying the Taliban had warned people not to take part in an election process intended to strengthen the American-backed government.

The bomb appears to have been planted inside the rented minibus and may have been set off by the driver himself, who parked the vehicle outside a military base seconds before the explosion. Afghan soldiers cordoned off the area immediately and caught the driver, who is now under arrest, said the deputy governor of the province, Dr. Asef, who only uses one name.

The women in the bus were registration officials, traveling to an outlying district, Rodat, south of Jalalabad, to register women for the elections. There was at least one child with them, a 5-year-old girl who was in a critical condition Saturday afternoon. She was evacuated to the American military base at Bagram.

Dr. Baz Muhammad Sherzad, the deputy director of Jalalabad's city hospital, who went to the scene of the explosion, said two women died instantly in the back of the bus. Three of the wounded were in very serious condition, including the child, he said. The authorities had not been able to determine whom her mother was yet, he said. One woman had already undergone an amputation, he said.

The United Nations, which is jointly running the election registration process with Afghan partners, reported two women killed and 13 people wounded, including 2 children.

The attack is a huge blow to the election process, which American officials and President Hamid Karzai have pushed to hold this year, as the mandate of his transitional administration expires.

All movement of registration teams made up of women was immediately suspended in the eastern, southeastern and southern regions of the country, where security is of the greatest concern, said a United Nations spokesman, Manoel de Almeida e Silva.

"It is a matter of very, very serious concern," he said. "There is no doubt it was a direct attack on the electoral process." He said halting the registration process was not under consideration at this stage.

But as the Taliban and other militants continue their attacks on government officials, aid workers and now election workers, and armed factions are still causing sporadic clashes in northern Afghanistan, it looks more and more likely that the election process will be increasingly disruptive.

Less than half of the electorate - four million of an estimated 10.5 million voters - have been registered so far, and the registration teams have been expanding rapidly into the districts in recent weeks to reach the rural populations and speed up registration.

But as they have increased their activity, so has the violence. Election officials say local tensions will only increase as the election approaches, particularly because both parliamentary and presidential elections are planned.

Both the American military commander here, Gen. David Barno, and Mr. Karzai have also said recently that attacks by armed militants would increase in the period leading up to the elections. The Americans increased their force of 11,000 troops to 20,000 in May to enhance security and contain the insurgency. Twelve American soldiers have been killed this year in clashes and ambushes, including two marines on Thursday.

Mr. Karzai appealed to NATO on Friday to send more forces to improve security for the elections as leaders were heading to the NATO summit meeting in Istanbul. NATO has a force of more than 6,000 in Kabul and the northern town of Kunduz, and has been slow to meet Afghan government requests to expand its presence further.

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Taliban claim responsibility for deaths of two Afghan UN election workers

KABUL : Taliban remnants claimed responsibility for the bomb attack that killed two Afghani United Nations election workers in eastern Afghanistan in the first direct strike on efforts to prepare for the country's forthcoming elections.

The device, which exploded inside a minibus carrying workers to voter registration sites in eastern Nangarhar province, left 13 women and two children killed or injured, the United Nations said in a statement.

The vehicle had left its office in the Nangarhar provincial capital Jalalabad and was on its way to Shinwar district when the blast occurred, officials said.

"Preliminary information is that explosives were placed in the minibus," UN special representative in Afghanistan Jean Arnault said.

"Two women were killed. Three other women are in critical condition as well as a boy child accompanying his mother."

Earlier, a UN spokesman said three people had died.

A man claiming to represent the Taliban, Abdul Latif Hakimi, told AFP via satellite phone that the bomb had been fixed to the underside of the bus.

"We claim responsibility for the bomb blast in a minibus carrying female electoral commission workers," he said.

"We will try our best to sabotage the election process and this was a sign of Taliban's attempt to sabotage elections."

According to the UN statement and local officials, the driver of the minibus left the vehicle just before the explosion. He was caught shortly after the blast and has been taken in by police.

The United Nations has now restricted the movements of women working for the electoral secretariat in conservative Afghanistan, where most females still wear the all-encompassing burqa and few work.

President Hamid Karzai, who is the frontrunner for the September presidential polls, condemned the attack as "inhumane" and "un-Islamic" and urged Afghans to stick with the electoral process.

"That the terrorists attacked women is an anti-Islamic, hateful action," he said in a statement released by his office.

Karzai said he believed that the "enemies of peace and stability in Afghanistan" felt jealous of the success of the voter registration process in eastern Nangarhar where some 600,000 people have placed their names on the electoral rolls.

"The president of the Islamic state of Afghanistan warns the enemies of peace and stability in the country that they cannot mislead our nation from elections with such inhumane actions," the statement read.

Voter registration has been going on since December 2003 in preparation for the country's first presidential and parliamentary elections.

However, the polls have been threatened by remnants of the Taliban regime and voter registration vehicles have been targeted with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades in recent weeks.

In early May, two Britons and their Afghan translator who were working for a private security firm to assess security ahead of the elections, were killed in eastern Nuristan province.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Afghanistan said the security sector would not be deterred by the latest attack from assisting with elections.

"There will be people, there will be terrorists, who will try to stop the upcoming elections and this may be an indicator of the desperation of the people trying to derail the elections," US Lieutenant Colonel Tucker Mansager said.

- AFP

 

Jun 27, 2004

Suspected Taliban Kill Up to 16 Afghans After Finding That They Have Registered to Vote

By Noor Khan

Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban fighters killed up to 16 men after learning they had registered for Afghanistan's U.S.-backed national elections, the deadliest attack yet in a campaign aimed at sabotaging the nation's first free vote, officials said Sunday.

The assault raised security fears and added to doubts over whether Afghanistan is ready to hold elections as planned in September - and increased pressure on NATO leaders meeting Monday in Turkey to deploy more peacekeepers here.

The killings took place Friday on a road in southern Uruzgan province and various reports put the number of dead at 10 or 16. News of the deaths emerged a day after a bomb ripped through a bus carrying female election workers in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing two of them and wounding 13. A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility.

Time is running out for the joint U.N.-Afghan electoral authority to decide on the polling date if the election is to be held according to schedule.

According to the electoral law, the date must be announced 90 days beforehand - meaning by July 2, if polling takes place on the last day of September.

The Uruzgan attack, which left between 10 and 16 people dead, underscored the risks faced by Afghans if they want to exercise their democratic rights, particularly in lawless areas of the country, plagued by Taliban-led insurgents who have threatened more attacks against election workers and voters.

Rozi Khan, the Uruzgan police chief, said assailants stopped a van carrying 12 men on a road about 18 miles from the provincial capital, Tirin Kot.

When the gunmen searched their documents and found that they had registered to vote, they opened fire. Two men escaped and alerted police, who found the 10 bodies but have made no arrests.

Obaidullah Khan, the top political administrator of the victims' home district of Uruzgan, confirmed the attack but said 16 people had died, and only one man had survived.

It was impossible to immediately account for the discrepancy.

Obaidullah Khan said six or seven attackers had launched the assault, while others hid in rocks nearby.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. military is adamant the election can stick to schedule - although with only three days left for voter registration, only about half of eligible people have signed up nationwide.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said Sunday he expected the electoral authority to extend in some areas of the country the end-of-June deadline for registration, to address regional and gender imbalances in the electoral rolls.

Just over 5 million voters have signed up so far, and only about one-third of them are women. Remote, Pashtun-dominated areas where insurgents are most active are lagging behind other regions.

"The southeast is an area of concern, the south as well," de Almeida e Silva told a news conference in Kabul.

Jean Arnault, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, has urged NATO leaders who will meet at the Istanbul summit to send more troops ahead of the vote. The alliance has 6,400 peacekeepers here, largely confined to Kabul.

But Arnault insisted Sunday that attacks like the bombing against the female election workers in Jalalabad should not be allowed to scuttle the election process.

"The best way we can pay tribute to the two women killed is to rededicate ourselves to this process," he said during a visit to some of the bomb victims and their families.

On Sunday, authorities in Jalalabad questioned the driver of the bus targeted in the bombing. The driver allegedly fled shortly before the blast.

"He is from Jalalabad, but we're not 100 percent sure he did this," said provincial governor's spokesman Faizan, who uses only one name. He declined to identify the suspect further.

Seven badly injured passengers - including one child - have been transferred to Kabul and the main U.S. military base at Bagram, north of the capital, for treatment, de Almeida e Silva said.

He said that voter registration was continuing in surrounding Nangarhar province despite the attack, although the movement of female election staff had been suspended in the south, southeast and east of the country.

Because of religious and cultural sensitivities in this deeply Islamic country, voter registration is segregated between the sexes.

----

Associated Press Writer Matthew Pennington in Kabul contributed to this report.

AP-ES-06-27-04 1340EDT

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/international/asia/28afgh.html

New York Times

June 28, 2004

14 Afghans Are Killed for Registering to Vote

By DAVID ROHDE

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 27 - Suspected Taliban fighters have carried out their most lethal attack yet in a widening campaign to derail Afghan national elections, executing at least 14 unarmed men because they had registered to vote, government officials said.

Jan Muhammad, the governor of the province of Uruzgan, said three survivors of the attack on Friday told officials that Taliban fighters had kidnapped and killed the men after discovering their voter registration cards.

"These three people were saying the Taliban were telling us, 'You are non-Muslims,' " Mr. Muhammad said. "You are helping them and you are getting these cards."

On Saturday, a bomb exploded on a bus carrying women who were election workers in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing two women and wounding 13 others, including a 5-year-old girl. In a setback for the registration effort, United Nations officials immediately suspended all movement of registration teams made up of women in eastern and southern Afghanistan, areas where the largest number of attacks have been occurring.

A man identifying himself as a Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for both attacks in telephone interviews, contending that the men executed on Friday were election workers and government soldiers, The Associated Press reported. People who say they are Taliban officials have issued threats against Afghans who take part in an election process that they say is intendedto strengthen the American-backed government.

The twin attacks mark a new level of brutality and may increase pressure on NATO leaders meeting in Istanbul on Monday to commit additional troops to secure the elections, which are scheduled for September. At least 400 Afghans have died in violence across the country this year, including factional fighting and attacks by suspected Taliban fighters on government officials, aid workers, election workers and now, apparently, on registered voters.

Afghan and United Nations officials have said another 5,000 NATO troops are needed to secure the elections. Along with attacks by suspected Taliban fighters, clashes and intimidation among armed rivals are expected in local contests. The elections are for president and Parliament.

On Friday, President Hamid Karzai again called for NATO to increase significantly the contingent of 6,000 troops it has in Kabul and the northern city of Kunduz. But European countries are expected to commit only an additional 1,800 troops, most of them to safer areas of the country.

The United States recently increased its troop levels in Afghanistan to 20,000 from 11,000, and American forces have been aggressively pursuing the suspected Taliban insurgents in the country's south.

Mr. Muhammad, the Uruzgan provincial governor, said in a telephone interview that 35 to 40 members of the Taliban stopped several cars at roughly 5 p.m. on Friday as they traveled between the towns of Khas Uruzgan and Tirin Kot, the provincial capital. He said the insurgents forced the men to drive and walk to Dai Chopan, a Taliban stronghold in neighboring Zabul Province, where they were killed.

Haji Naqibullah, who answered the phone in the district office in Khas Uruzgan, gave a similar account of the killings. But Mr. Naqibullah, who said he was a delegate to the country's constitutional convention last winter, said that 15 men had been killed, not 14.

The governor said he had dispatched troops to the area to look for the killers.

to free and fair elections, me thinks.

 

Jul 1, 2004

Official: Afghan Election Could Be Delayed Past September

By Stephen Graham

Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan will miss the deadline to set a date for already-delayed elections because of wrangling among officials and political parties, a senior official said Thursday.

Farooq Wardak, a senior member of the country's election management body, said the group would not reach a decision by Friday, the last day to call the historic vote in September under new election laws. Afghan law says the polling day must be set at least 90 days in advance, making Friday the last chance to announce a Sept. 30 election.

But Wardak said after meeting with top U.N. official Jean Arnault and President Hamid Karzai that there was "always flexibility" about the 90-day grace period.

"If all the preparations are in place, the end of September is still possible," Wardak said.

Karzai has pledged repeatedly to hold elections in September, despite mounting violence against election workers and concern that warlords will use intimidation to cement their power.

Presidential and parliamentary elections already were delayed from June, and October is seen as the last chance to hold a vote before snow closes high passes in the Hindu Kush mountain range in dangerous eastern Afghanistan until the spring of 2005.

Wardak said the government census office had yet to deliver vital population estimates used to decide the distribution of seats in Parliament.

He also said only four of the 20 political parties consulted by the election body insist on the parliamentary vote being held this fall.

The votes are supposed to be held simultaneously, but observers say there is a possibility that officials could separate them, holding the presidential vote in October and the parliamentary election next year.

Karzai has argued that blocking the formation of Parliament would betray Afghans' hopes some three years after the U.S.-led ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime and more than two decades after the nation was plunged into a series of ruinous wars.

Political wrangling is not the only obstacle in the way of a vote. International officials have been cautioning for months that security is simply not adequate to hold the election.

The United Nations, which holds half the seats on the election body, has warned that warlords and faction leaders - some in government - must disarm their private armies to keep the vote credible.

"There is indeed a debate," U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said. "Of course, if the debate goes on, that will have an impact on the election date."

News of the latest delay follows several weeks of attacks targeting election workers and registered voters. Two female election voters and more than a dozen Afghans who registered to vote were killed last week.

Analysts doubt whether the vote itself can be any better protected, even though thousands of foreign troops and newly trained Afghan security forces are being marshaled to shield polling stations.

The violence has not deterred Afghans from registering, with 5.5 million of the estimated 9.5 million eligible Afghans - including 2 million women - already signed up.

The fear is that many will vote along lines dictated by local strongmen and wealthy drug barons, blunting the hopes of independent candidates.

In March, Karzai used a promise to disarm 40,000 irregular fighters by June 30 to win international pledges of billions of dollars in aid to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan.

But only 9,700 soldiers have given up their guns so far.

Almeida e Silva said U.N. officials "continue to attach the highest priority to DDR," which stands for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former soldiers.

AP-ES-07-01-04 1223EDT

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Blast kills woman in new attack on Afghan poll work

08 Jul 2004 13:15:00 GMT

By David Brunnstrom

KABUL, July 8 (Reuters) - A landmine blast killed a woman working with the United Nations to register voters for Afghanistan's elections on Thursday, the latest attack blamed on Islamic militants determined to derail the polls.

Four other poll workers in the same vehicle were wounded in the second fatal attack in less than two weeks on women registering female voters in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

It came just hours after the interior minister said security should be sufficient for polls this year, while the U.N. urged NATO to speed the dispatch of more peacekeepers to ensure this.

The woman died and her driver was in serious condition after their vehicle hit the mine in Khogyani district, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said. Three other poll workers -- one woman and two men, were slightly hurt, he said.

Provincial spokesman Faizanullhaq said they had just finished their last day of work. He blamed "those opposed to national unity" -- a term used for Taliban militants and their allies.

The militants have vowed to disrupt the polls, which they view as an effort to consolidate the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

A Taliban bombing killed killed three Afghan women poll workers in Nangahar's capital Jalalabad on June 26 and a day earlier the guerrillas killed 16 men in the central province of Uruzgan who they found with voter registration cards.

"Yet again this shows the need for improved security for the electoral process," Almeida e Silva said.

Hundreds have died in militant attacks this year and the 20,000-strong U.S.-led military force pursuing the Taliban and its allies has warned of more as the polls near.

POLL DATE EXPECTED SOON

The U.N.-Afghan election body is expected to soon announce a date for the elections, delayed from June by security worries and slow voter registration.

Officials say the election body told the Cabinet this week it should be possible to hold presidential polls by mid-October, but recommended delaying a parliamentary vote supposed to be held simultaneously for two or six months, given logistical problems.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told a news briefing the gap would be kept as short as possible, and added:

"We believe that the security establishment of Afghanistan, with the cooperation of the international community is capable of providing security to hold the presidential election on time."

The U.N. spokesman said it was unclear when extra troops pledged by NATO would arrive, but they were needed quickly.

"We hope that the decisions of NATO rematerialise on the ground, in particular to provide an environment for enhanced security for candidates before and during the election campaign and during the elections themselves."

NATO has about 6,500 troops in Afghanistan, most on peacekeeping duty in Kabul. It has agreed to send 1,500 more to Kabul and the north for the polls -- far fewer than the United Nations and the government had been seeking.

How soon before the selections they will arrive remains unclear as members have been slow to offer troops and aircraft.

In a further sign of instability police on Thursday shot and wounded five demonstrators after supporters of the governor of the western province of Farah pelted them with stones.

In Kabul Jalali said three foreigners, including at least one American, arrested in Kabul for detaining eight locals, had apparently been waging a private war on supposed terrorists.

The men were arrested at a house where police discovered, several illegally detained Afghan men with beards.

U.S. embassy spokesman Roy Glover identified their leader as Jonathan, or Jack, K. Idema, said by the U.S. military to have passed himself off as a U.S. government or military official.

He said all three foreigners had identified themselves as Americans, but this had yet to be confirmed.

The arrests come as the U.S. military faces scrutiny over its treatment of militant prisoners in Afghanistan, where U.S.-based Human Rights Watch accuses it of "systematic" abuse of detainees.