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Taliban to disrupt Afghanistan poll
 [The Peninsula] The Taliban yesterday vowed to target Afghanistan's presidential election, urging fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces before the April 5 vote to choose a successor to Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... . Previous Afghan elections have been badly-marred by violence, with at least 31 civilians and 26 soldiers and police potted on polling day alone in 2009, as the Islamist gunnies displayed their opposition to the US-backed polls. Another blood-stained election would damage claims by international donors that the expensive military and civilian intervention in Afghanistan since 2001 has made progress in establishing a functioning state system. NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... combat troops are withdrawing from the country after 13 years of fighting a fierce Islamist insurgency, which erupted when the Taliban were ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. "We have given orders to all our mujahideen to use all force at their disposal to disrupt these upcoming sham elections -- to target all workers, activists, callers, security apparatus and offices," the Taliban said in an emailed statement. "It is the religious obligation of every Afghan to fulfil their duty by foiling the latest plot of the invaders that is guised in the garb of elections." Billions of dollars have been spent on military operations and development in Afghanistan, but the country remains crippled by poverty and violence, with weak government structures and a fragile economy dependent on aid money. The next president will face a testing new era as the Afghan army and police fight the Taliban without NATO assistance and international funding declines. Efforts to open peace talks with the Taliban have so far failed. Negotiations look set for another push by the incoming government as it tries to bring stability to areas in the south and east where gunnies hold sway. The Taliban's statement yesterday is the first explicit threat against this year's vote. The group has targeted every election since 2004. Among the front-runners are Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... , who came second in 2009, former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul ... former foreign minister and a very close confidant of Hamid Karzai. Before serving as foreign minister Rassoul also spent seven years laboring as a national security adviser to the president. An ethnic Pashtun born in Kabul, Rassoul was the valedictorian of his class at the illustrious Franco-American school in Kabul, Lycee Istiqal. He has an MD from the Paris Medical School in France..... and former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani. Posted by: Fred 2014-03-11 |
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