Karzai expects peaceful polls despite fierce fighting

[Inland]

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Afghanistan is still working on its first elected legislature.


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_29-8-2005_pg4_20

Karzai expects peaceful polls despite fierce fighting

KABUL: Afghanistan’s president said on Sunday he is optimistic that next month’s legislative elections will be peaceful, but the unrelenting violence that has marred the lead-up to the polls raged on, leaving a candidate dead and three American troops wounded.

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American military commanders have prepared elaborate security plans to safeguard the voting, saying Taliban rebels are throwing all their resources into disrupting the polls. In the latest anti-American violence, militants attacked a US military convoy on Friday 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Kabul, wounding three American soldiers, a US military statement said. An attack helicopter rushed to the site, but the rebels had fled.

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Attacks on the US military so close to Kabul are rare and Friday’s assault occurred less than a week after a roadside bomb in the capital exploded near a convoy of US Embassy vehicles, wounding two American staff members.

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Ullah’s killing brings to four the number of candidates killed so far in the lead-up to the polls. Four election workers have also been murdered and several election offices have been rocketed.

[enigma000]

1. Afghan Polling Places Will Not Be Targets, Taliban Official Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/international/asia/23...

ABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 - Taliban fighters will not attack polling places during parliamentary elections next month, to avoid killing civilians, but will continue to attack American and Afghan government forces, a spokesman for the group said Monday.

"We have decided not to target polling stations in civilian areas," the spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, was reported as saying by Reuters. "U.S. and Afghan forces are setting up polling stations in crowded areas, which if attacked will cause big losses." He was reported to have called several news agencies.

So they plan to attack candidates and, I imagine, election officials but not polling booths. Well, that's awfully good of them. . . . .