Taliban Commander Threatens Afghan Elections

[DuctapeFatwa]

A top Taliban commander warned on Wednesday that Afghans who take part in elections this year will face attack, the first direct threat the guerrillas have issued to the U.N.-backed polls.

Mullah Dadullah, who is blamed for ordering the killing of a foreign Red Cross worker last year and a series of massacres during the Taliban's rule, warned Afghans not to vote in the poll due to be held in June.

"The people of Afghanistan must not participate in the election," he said after contacting Reuters from an undisclosed location. "If they do, they will come under Taliban attack."

Dadullah is one of the most-trusted lieutenants of elusive Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and a member of a 10-man leadership council set up last year. It was the second time in three days he had called Reuters to issue a threat.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040218_502.html

[diamond14]

1. thanks bush*....for Billions of OUR dollars...this mess is what we get

TWO and a half years of WAR, and this is what we got....


IMO, we can now call Afganistan 'the forgotten war'....which is still costing American a BILLION dollars a month...and LOTS of KILLED and wounded American soldiers....and a country that is just as third-world as ever....another complete failure for the shrub....

[Aidoneus]

2. Afghanistan: When push comes to shove

Afghanistan: When push comes to shove
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - As each day brings spring a fraction closer, the mood in Afghanistan is not one of the joy normally associated with the season, but one of trepidation, as the country stares down the barrel of a gun.

In this latest chapter of Afghanistan's tormented history, two Afghans are expected to feature prominently in Khost and the eastern province of Kunar, respectively: legendary commander Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, and former Afghan premier and chief of the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Sources in Islamabad close to the Afghan resistance say that once the weather permits, Khost, on the eastern Afghan border with Pakistan, will be the first target of resistance forces, with the aim of taking complete control of it. Much of the spade work has already been done in forging local alliances with tribal chiefs and warlords, who have said that they will either support the attack or stay neutral. Haqqani will lead this offensive, supported by senior Afghan commanders, including Saifullah Mansoor.

Before this offense begins, though, more suicide attacks will be carried out against coalition forces in different regions of Afghanistan. These were planned by Hekmatyar and his most trusted commander, "Engineer" Kashmir Khan, at a recent meeting in Kunar.

--snip--

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FB19Ag01.html