[ToloNews] Minister of Interior Wais Barmak told TOLOnews on Saturday evening that 192 security incidents had been reported countrywide during the day - as people cast their votes in the long-awaited parliamentary elections.He said these included a number of different types of incidents including grenade and IED kabooms.
Barmak said at least 17 non-combatants were killed and 83 civilians maimed in these incident and there had been 1,700 threats issued.
The minister also said 10 coppers were killed and one Afghan National Army soldier was killed. Seventeen security forces were maimed throughout the day, he added.
Officials from the interior ministry said earlier in the day although a number of incidents were recorded nationwide, the enemy did not manage achieve its goal of disrupting elections.
>Gen. Akhtar Mohammad Ibrahimi, deputy minister of interior for security said the deadliest attack on Saturday had been a suicide kaboom in Kabul’s PD17 that claimed the lives of 10 civilians and five coppers.
Officials said despite the attacks, people still went to the polling centers.
| An Nahar adds: |
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
warned voters on Saturday to boycott the "sham and theatrical process to protect their lives".
Around 70,000 security forces have been deployed to protect polling centres across the war-torn country.
| Another Tolo News article adds: |
Deadly suicide bomber strikes polling station in Afghan capital[Al Jazeera] A jacket wallah went
kaboom!in the Afghan capital on Saturday, killing at least 15 people as voting concluded in parliamentary elections that were overshadowed by the threat of attacks and serious organizational problems.
Voting should have been concluded by the time the attacker struck in an area to the north of Kabul, but polling stations were kept open longer than normal to cope with large numbers of people who had been unable to vote.
Ten civilians and five coppers were killed when the bomber tried to enter a polling station and more than 25 were maimed, a security bigshot said.
The attack appeared to have been the most serious of a day marked by a series of smaller-scale incidents that caused dozens of casualties across the country.