R - An Afghan woman blows on her finger to dry the ink used to prevent fraud as she waits to cast her ballot in the parliamentary elections in Herat September 18, 2005. Afghan President Hamid Karzai voted in landmark parliamentary and provincial elections on Sunday, saying Afghans were making history in determining their future after 30 years of war and foreign interference. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

L - An Afghan man casts his ballot in the parliamentary election as an election inspectors gestures at the grand mosque in Herat September 18, 2005. Afghan President Hamid Karzai voted in landmark parliamentary and provincial elections on Sunday, saying Afghans were making history in determining their future after 30 years of war and foreign interference.

R - A woman is about to drop her ballot paper in a ballot box in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005. Afghanistan held landmark parliamentary elections on Sept. 18, the first in three decades. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

L - Afghan President Hamid Karzai places his ballot for the Afghan parliamentary election in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005. The Afghan people braved threats of violence on Sunday to vote in landmark legislative elections, with some 12.4 million Afghans registered to vote at more than 6,000 polling stations, which are guarded by some 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops, all supporting this fragile democracy after decades of war. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Afghanistan Holds Legislative Elections - By STEVE GUTTERMAN AP

KABUL, Afghanistan Sep 17, 2005 — Afghans went to the polls Sunday to elect a new legislature, hoping to bolster a fragile democracy after a quarter-century of war and sideline the Taliban militants who fought to undermine the vote.

"Today is a magnificent day for Afghanistan," said Ali Safar, 62, who was standing in line to vote in the capital, Kabul. "We want dignity, we want stability and peace. Thirty years of war and poverty is enough."

Some 12.4 million Afghans were registered to vote at more than 6,000 polling stations, guarded by some 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops.

Afghanistan holds landmark vote – BBC 9/18/05

Voting has ended for the first parliamentary and local elections held in Afghanistan in more than 30 years. More than 12 million voters had a choice of almost 6,000 candidates. Voting was steady through the day.

Thousands of foreign and Afghan security forces were on high alert after a campaign marred by violence. Six people, including two policemen and a French soldier, were killed in separate incidents. A UN compound near Kabul came under a rocket attack. One UN worker was injured in that incident.

The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says, despite reports of queues in various parts of the country, there are signs that turn-out was lower than for last year's presidential vote. In the 2004 polls which President Hamid Karzai won by a landslide, turn-out was 75%.

At one polling station in Kabul there were handfuls of voters where last year there had been long lines. Our correspondent says the picture that emerged seems to be one of steady, rather than brisk voting.
President Hamid Karzai was one of the early voters in the capital, saying it was a good day for Afghanistan whatever the result. "We are making history," he said as he cast his ballot.

Reports from Kandahar in the south say women voted in large numbers. BBC reporters in Jalalabad say more women than men voted there. Correspondents say the sporadic violence did not appear to have deterred voters. Attacks by militants, mostly in southern and eastern rural areas, have been largely blamed on supporters of Afghanistan's former Taleban regime who oppose the election.

The administration of the elections was an additional headache. Poor transport links and inhospitable terrain presented huge problems. Illiteracy is also a factor and there were fears many people may find it difficult to choose candidates by their picture and symbol.

In Kabul, voters had to work their way through a seven-page ballot paper with almost 400 candidates for the parliament alone. About 40,000 Afghan police and army troops were on duty, backed up by more than 30,000 US and Nato forces.

More than 1,000 people, including seven election candidates, have been killed in militant-linked violence in the past six months - the worst bloodshed since US-led forces ousted the Taleban in 2001.
Organisers and President Karzai urged voters to defy the militants and turn out in large numbers. A spokesman for the UN, which has helped organise the foreign-funded vote, said militants had failed to disrupt preparations for the election.

The elections are being seen as another step away from years of war and turmoil and are part of a process agreed four years ago to bring democracy to Afghanistan following the toppling of the Taleban. Final results are due in late October.

Bullets, ballots and burqas as Afghans eagerly vote - By Terry Friel

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept 18 (Reuters) - There's a buzz at the Zarghona Ana school for girls on the baking edge of Afghanistan's Registan desert on Sunday.

Playful chatter and laughter bounce off the thick, cooling green-and-white walls as dozens of women, most with burqas and veils pulled back comfortably off their face in the absence of men, wait to vote in the first parliamentary ballot in living memory.

From President Hamid Karzai's mother, Sarajo, to 18-year-old high school students whose mothers had barely been born the last time Afghans chose a parliament, the women in the chaotic southern trading centre of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city and birthplace of the Taliban, flocked to have their say.

"I am so happy, so happy," says Khatereh Mushafiq, 18, her black veil decorated with white flowers pulled back from her beaming face. "Because, you know, we (women) are also now taking part in the government and in society. People must take part, people must have a say."

As a handful of blue-uniformed policemen with AK-47s guard each polling station -- separate ones for men and for women -- Kandaharis queued quietly in the hot sun to cast their vote for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, lower house of parliament, and one of 34 provincial councils.

Sixty-eight seats are reserved for women candidates, but the women voters appear to be voting equally for women as for men. The holdout elements of the Taliban have denounced the election and there was a string of attacks in the southest of the country on Sunday. All voters were frisked on their way in, seated female election workers sticking their heads under burqas to search and check faces.

But security was relatively light in Kandahar, one of the major remaining centres of the Taliban insurgency. There were no machine guns at polling stations, no sandbagged bunkers, no armoured cars and few police or troops.

Too few, says election worker Ahmad Salim, 28, at a centre for Kuchi nomads in a half-built building of bricks and mud just outside the city on an eerily quiet Highway 1 to Kabul.

"I'm scared," he says of the Taliban, surrounded by tough-looking nomads in long turbans. "Where are the police? Where is the U.N.? How many police do you see here? Four? It's not enough."

The city itself was largely shut down. All traffic, except candidates' and other official cars, ordered off the streets. In some neighbourhoods, only the whirr of bicycles or loud Afghan pop music from a roadside stall could be heard.

Sarajo Karzai, along with the president's three-year-old niece, Shamla, sporting a badge with Karzai's photo, turned up early to vote. Karzai is not standing in this poll, he was elected in a separate presidential ballot a year ago.

"I am happy," Sarajo says after voting, "for peace in Afghanistan, for women who will find their rights, that all the Afghans will now come back to our country."

Did Karzai give her any advice on how to vote in the non-party parliamentary election? "No, he didn't. I wasn't even able to talk to him yesterday or today," she says.

And how has he done after a year of winning his mandate? "He is my son. How can I say anything, whether it's good or it's bad?" the defining image of this election could be Kandahar woman Bemana single-handedly putting together cardboard vote booths at the last-minute and carrying them to their place.

Or it could be the little girl, well below voting age, who turned up at Zarghona school with her sick sister's voting card -- the family determined not to lose their say -- but not quite sure what to do.

"Just pull your veil over your face," someone told her, "they won't realise it's you." For many here where the Taliban once stifled all criticism and dissent, the chance simply to have a say is enough.

“Before, there was no democracy, now there is democracy," says 36-year-old Mohammed Twahir, who sells cold drinks from a roadside stall, after voting. "Democracy means freedom."

Afghanistan holds landmark elections

(CNN) -- Afghan voters went to the polls Sunday amid heavy security to elect representatives to their national parliament and local legislators in 34 provinces, after weeks of pre-election violence by militants trying to derail the vote.

The U.S. military and Afghan police were providing security at more than 6,100 polling places and post-election counting stations, and they also had a quick-reaction force in each province to respond to attacks.

Violence was a constant threat. A U.S. soldier and two Afghan soldiers were injured Sunday when their patrol came under fire from suspected Taliban militants, said Tech. Sgt. Marina Evans, a U.S. military spokeswoman. The attack occurred about 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the U.S. forward operating base, Salerno, near the city of Khost.

A U.S. forward operating base at Baylough, near a polling station in the Deh Chopan Valley -- an area traditionally known as a Taliban stronghold -- came under mortar fire on Sunday. Local police and U.S. military officials said five mortar rounds were fired from about 5 kilometers (3 miles) away. None of the mortars struck the base and no one was injured, authorities said.

Also Sunday, a rocket struck a warehouse used by UNOCA -- the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian and Economic Assistance Programs relating to Afghanistan -- on the edge of Kabul, according to a UN spokesman in Kabul. The rocket caused a small fire, and one staff member sustained minor injuries, but the spokesman said the attack would not affect the elections.

A few hours before, a French soldier was killed and two others injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in the town of Spin Buldak on the border with Pakistan, according to France's Defense Ministry. This is the third French service member killed during Operation Enduring Freedom. The other two were killed in October in a Kabul traffic accident.

In a demonstration of how much the country has changed since the ruling Taliban were toppled nearly four years ago, many of the early voters at the Eid Gah mosque in Kabul were women, who, under the Taliban, had been barred from participating in national life.

At the Deh Chopan Valley polling station, however, no women were among the voters who lined up outside as early as 6 a.m. to cast their ballots. While two women are among the region's candidates, neither visited the area because of concern regarding Taliban attacks.

In October's presidential election, only 34 people voted at the Deh Chopan polling station. But as of about 1 p.m. Sunday (4:30 a.m. EDT), 810 villagers had cast ballots. The valley has about 50,000 residents, several thousand of which are registered to vote. Voters were treated to a free lunch of lamb and rice.

Inside the polling station, confusion was rampant. Many voters did not know who to support, as they have not met the regional candidates. There are no schools in the area, and most voters cannot read. Some were confused about having their fingers inked. They turned out to vote, however, in a show of support for President Hamid Karzai's government, and consulted with one another on who to vote for.
Some men said they voted for the female candidates. Others said they voted for another candidate, reportedly a former Taliban commander, simply because they recognized his picture.

As he cast his ballot, Karzai said if the majority of those elected to parliament are in opposition to him, "it's the decision of the Afghan people. Very good. As a matter of fact, I want a good, strong parliament."

For weeks, as the vote approached, U.S. and Afghan forces battled Islamic militants, including remnants of the Taliban. Three policemen and seven militants were killed Friday, and 20 people were arrested Saturday in a plot to plant bombs at a hydroelectric dam in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan government said.

At least six candidates for office have been killed, and 17 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since August, most in combat-related incidents. Afghan security forces and citizens have also died.

Last week, Human Rights Watch issued a report saying that the process leading up to the elections "has been undermined by insurgent attacks and intimidation by warlords."

The U.N. secretary-general's special representative in Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, Saturday condemned the violence and intimidation of candidates, but he said he believes the country is developing a solid new political culture and "a sense that the legacy of the rule of the gun can be resisted is now taking root."

CNN Correspondent Ryan Chilcote and journalist Tom Coghlan contributed to this report.

Afghanistan's president 'honoured' to vote in historic ballot

President Hamid Karzai said he was honoured to vote in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in 30 years, while the election chief urged voters to use their new democratic rights at the ballot box.
"It is a great honour for me as an Afghan and I feel independent to be able to vote of my own free will," Karzai said as he cast his ballot in Kabul soon after polling stations opened at 6:00 am (0130 GMT) on Sunday.

The head of Afghanistan's election body, Bismillah Bismil, said the parliamentary vote was a "momentous day in our land's history" and all eligible Afghan voters should take part.

"This election is for the Afghan people. By coming out to vote today you will be playing a vital role in Afghanistan's progress to democracy," he told reporters as he voted in Kabul.

"Let us act and vote together in solidarity to make this step to our democratic future smooth, peaceful and united," he said.

The vote is the second democratic election in Afghanistan since the hardline Islamic Taliban rulers were chased from power in 2001 in US-led campaign launched after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks.

The first was in October last year, when Karzai was elected president. Sunday's vote for the lower house of parliament and 34 provincial councils was held under massive security after threats from the Taliban.

Polling stations were due to close at 4:00 pm, although they could stay open longer. The final results are expected in about three weeks.

French Soldier Dies in Afghanistan

A French special forces soldier was killed and one was seriously wounded when their vehicle struck a mine while patrolling in southern Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry said Sunday.

The patrol was part of a major operation to ensure security while Afghans voted in legislative elections, a ministry statement said. It did not provide the exact location of the incident on Saturday.

France sent 200 special forces to Afghanistan in 2003 to take part in operations against the Taliban militia. The soldiers, drawn from various ranks of the military — land, sea and air — operate under U.S. special forces command.

Eight dead in Afghan election violence

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept 18 (AFP) - Eight people were killed in fighting between security forces and suspected Taliban rebels, including a civilian in a US air strike, in the run-up to Afghanistan's landmark elections Sunday, officials said.

The attacks included a bomb blast which killed a French soldier near the Pakistani border and a rocket strike on a UN warehouse on the outskirts of Kabul which left a UN staffer with minor injuries. The French soldier was the first to die in Afghanistan.

A second soldier in the same vehicle was seriously wounded in the attack, a statement said, adding the troops were part of France's contribution to the US-led operation in the country.

The Afghan civilian was killed overnight when US-led coalition forces came under attack in the eastern province of Khost and called in air support to bomb the area, Khost's deputy police chief Mohamed Zaman said.

"One civilian's residence in Khalsas district was also bombed, which resulted in the one civilian death. Five people from the same house were wounded," Zaman told AFP.

The US military said it was checking the report. Separately in Khost, rebels attacked a security post overnight and killed two policemen, police chief Mohammed Ayob told AFP. The US military said one US soldier and two Afghan soldiers were wounded.

Three Taliban fighters were killed in the firefight in Yaqobi district 130 kilometres (81 miles) southeast of the capital Kabul, Ayob said. "Their bodies are still at the site," he said. "The voting process is ongoing as normal in the district," he said.

A suspected Taliban militant was killed in an assault on a polling station late Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, provincial governor Mullah Shir Mohammed said. The polling station was not damaged.

In the rocket strike on the United Nations children's fund warehouse near Kabul early Sunday, two projectiles were fired but only one exploded, police and a UN official said. "There was a small fire, one local staff member was slightly injured," said UN spokesman Adrian Edwards.

Also on Sunday militants threw a hand grenade into the house of a candidate in the eastern province of Nangarhar province and injured five family members, an official said.

Candidates have been targeted in the run-up to the vote, which the ousted Taliban regime has vowed to disrupt, and seven have been killed. Police also defused a bomb near a polling station in the northern province of Baghlan, and in Khost they arrested two people with bombs trying to enter another voting centre, officials said.

The violence would not affect the vote, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jerry O'Hara said. "Incidents like this will have no effect on today's elections," he said.

The Taliban, ousted in a US-led campaign in late 2001 after they failed to hand over Osama bin Laden, stepped up their four-year-long insurgency ahead of the elections, the first parliamentary vote in Afghanistan in 30 years. More than 1,000 people have died in violence so far this year.

Rockets hit UN building in Afghan capital, wounding a staff member

KABUL, Afghanistan - (AP) Two rockets hit a United Nations warehouse in the Afghan capital Sunday, wounding a local staff member, a U.N. spokesman and police said.

The rockets caused a small fire in the warehouse, but it was quickly extinguished, said U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards.

Police said the staff member was only slightly wounded and had been taken to a hospital. The warehouse is about two kilometers (1.2 miles) from one of the main offices for organizers of Sunday's landmark legislative elections.

"This was an attempt to sabotage the elections," said local police chief Mohammed Akbar.

Failed suicide attack on Afghan polling station

KABUL, Sept 18 (AFP) - Two would-be suicide bombers were wounded Sunday when explosives strapped to their bodies detonated before they could attack a polling station in eastern Afghanistan, the interior ministry said.

The failed attack, the latest by militants intent on derailing the country's first parliamentary poll for three decades, was in the village of Ghaziabad near Khost city, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.

No one else was wounded, he said. "Two men who had strapped explosives to their bodies were wounded as they were attempting to enter a polling station in Ghaziabad two or three hours ago," Mashal said.

"Their bombs went off just before they were attempting to get into the centre. They were both wounded," he said. The men were taken to a Khost hospital, Mashal said. "The investigation is ongoing and their identifications are yet to be known," he said.

Twenty Taliban arrested for plot to blow up Afghan dam

KABUL, Sept 17 (AFP) - Afghan and US forces arrested 20 suspected Taliban rebels who were planting bombs at a hydroelectric dam in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, hours before key elections, the defence ministry said.

A patrol spotted the militants as they laid the explosives at the Girishk dam in restive Helmand province and they were arrested after an hour-long exchange of fire, ministry spokesman Mohammed Zahir Azimi told AFP.

"Twenty Taliban were arrested today by joint Afghan and coalition forces as they were placing bombs to blow up the dam in Girishk district," Azimi said, without giving further details.

Locals said there would have been massive damage to surrounding areas if militants had succeeded in blowing up the dam, which was built more than 30 years ago.

"To rebuild this dam would have cost more than 100 million dollars and years of time. It would have been a disaster," said Haji Mirajan, a local elder who is standing as a parliamentary candidate in Sunday's polls. He said the dam was around 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Lashkar Gah, the province's capital.

Around 25,000 families use water from the dam for farming and it supplies around 8,000 families with electricity, "although it does not work well", Mirajan said.

"The explosion of the dam may not have destroyed houses or caused civilian losses because the water would have ended in a vast canal, but three districts would have no water for agriculture," he said.

The arrests came less than 24 hours before millions of Afghans go to the polls in the war-shattered country's first parliamentary elections in a generation.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt Sunday's elections. Three policemen and four suspected Taliban militants were killed in fresh violence, officials said Saturday.

On Thursday suspected Taliban fighters dragged a candidate from his house in another part of Helmand province and shot him dead. He was the seventh candidate to be killed.

In another incident in southern Afghanistan, US and Afghan soldiers Saturday seized a car containing explosives and arrested five armed men in Kandahar province, the former stronghold of the Taliban, Azimi said.

Three Taliban gunmen were arrested in Qalat, the capital of neighbouring Zabul province, during an Afghan army operation lasting several hours, he said.

German troops should leave Afghanistan - CDU MP - 16 Sep 2005

BERLIN, Sept 16 (Reuters) - German troops should be recalled from Afghanistan to avoid being sucked into a quagmire, a lawmaker from Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) party was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview on Friday.

"Our goal must be to get German troops out of Afghanistan and home as quickly as possible rather than sink in the Afghan swamp," Willy Wimmer, a former junior defence minister, told Saturday's Koelner Stadt Anzeiger, according to an advance summary.

"The Pashtuns are fighting for ethnic goals, not democratic niceties," Wimmer added, referring to Afghanistan's main ethnic group, of which President Hamid Karzai is a member.

Germany is the biggest contributor to a NATO-led peacekeeping mission (ISAF) of 10,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan alongside a separate force of mainly U.S. combat troops. The German parliament is due to decide soon on a proposal to increase the number of German troops in the country to around 3,000 from the current 2,250.

Germany - like Afghanistan - goes to the polls on Sunday. Merkel's conservatives are expected to become the largest party in parliament, although without an absolute majority and it is not clear yet who will be her coalition partner.

Because of the time it takes to form a new government, Germany's current parliament - not the one being elected on Sunday - will decide on the renewal of the Afghan mandate.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government was the first to deploy German troops abroad since World War Two. His defence minister said the threat of terrorism meant defence of Germany started in the Hindukush mountains in Afghanistan.

Germany's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has so far backed the deployment of German peacekeepers abroad. The party's election manifesto says, however, foreign peacekeeping should not come at the expense of domestic security.

Demarcate border before fencing Durand Line: Afghanistan says to Pak -NewKerala.com, India / September 17, 2005

Islamabad: Pakistan’s proposal to fence its borders with Afghanistan, has run into rough weather with Kabul firmly putting its foot down over the proposal, saying that fencing could be initiated only after the boundaries were demarcated in accordance with international laws.

Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal has said that only after a demarcation could there be any further talk about fencing the Durand Line, The News quoted him as saying to the private Pajhwok Afghan News. He said that Afghans would never accept the fencing proposal before a demarcation of the border.

Accusing Pakistan of constructing security posts at Ghulam Khan, Zazai (or Jaji) and Babrak Thana partially on Afghan territory, he suggested the setting up a joint commission comprising experts from Afghanistan and Pakistan to demarcate the 2400-kilometres long border.

Navid Ahmad Muez, the spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, also said that Pakistan had not yet made any formal contact with Afghanistan regarding the proposal for fencing the border.

The report said that many Afghan politicians and intellectuals have also expressed opposition to the fencing proposal and termed it impractical and unnecessary, and said that Pakistan had mooted the proposal to deflect criticism that it wasn’t doing enough to stop infiltration of Taliban fighters from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan.

Will U.S. abandon Afghanistan? - The Washington Times 09/17/2005

By Joanna Nathan and Mark Schneider

"I will not vote, these elections are not worth anything, the candidates are the same people who destroyed Afghanistan," thunders the taxi driver as we jolt down Kabul's streets. Campaign posters for the upcoming National Assembly and Provincial Council elections on Sept. 18 blanket every non-moving object.

Suddenly, a thought struck him: "If I do vote, I will vote for a woman! They do not have blood on their hands." Hopefully, such revolutionary ideas will occur to many other voters in Afghanistan. Hopefully, they will feel confident enough in the secrecy of the ballot to exercise true choice and secure enough amidst an ongoing insurgency in the south and east to make it to the polling booth in the first place.
Election preparations have been at full steam for six months now, with more than 12 million voters enrolled and 5,800 candidates, 582 of them women. Ballot papers are a vision in color, featuring a picture and symbol for each candidate to aid illiterate voters. Weighing more than 1,000 tons, they are now making their way by helicopter, plane, truck, donkey and camel out to 6,000 polling centers across the country.

But despite such impressive technical preparations for these $159 million polls, there are wider concerns about both the framework of the elections and the viability of the institutions they will ultimately create.

The concern most immediately apparent to Afghans, such as our taxi driver, is the lack of a robust vetting system to bar candidates implicated in years of atrocities and drug trafficking. Indeed, the failure of the Karzai administration and his international backers to tackle head-on the perpetrators of past atrocities has led to a culture of impunity, with many of the same people back in power today and now seeking the mantle of a democratic mandate.

The U.N. Office of Drug Control reported at the end of August that Afghanistan produced 87 percent of the world's opium for the second year in a row. It also urged the removal of corrupt governors and officials involved in the drug trade, barring parliamentary candidates with drug ties, and "zero tolerance" toward warlords' involvement in drug trafficking. The latter recommendation has yet to be acted upon by the administration and Coalition forces who argue they are fighting against a still virulent insurgency. Yet, the drug trade is financing Taliban insurgent operations.

The fact that, in what became a highly politicized vetting process, only 32 candidates were barred for retaining links to armed groups has added to local disillusionment.

An inappropriate voting system, the rarely used single non-transferable voting and a political framework hostile to political parties mean these elections are being fought on ethnicity and individuals rather than ideas. In turn, the democratic bodies to emerge are likely to be fractured and weak with no workable caucuses or groupings on which to build a robust political culture.

However, above all these concerns are fears the international community may see these elections widely touted as the end of the transitional process agreed to in Bonn in December 2001 as a time to downgrade commitments to Afghanistan.

It is absolutely imperative that these elections are viewed as the beginnings of democratization, not the end. Afghanistan is still at a perilously fragile stage. This vote will provide the trappings of a democratic state, but there is still little in the way of institutions or resources to exert true control.

The ongoing insurgency in the south and east has been bloodier this summer than at any time since the fall of the Taliban, including the killing of six candidates and even more election workers. Ordinary Afghans continue to suffer some of the lowest social indicators in the world: life expectancy is 45; a woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes; and illiteracy is running at 70 percent. The Bonn process was about tight deadlines for political transition. The momentum created in this sphere now needs to be used to push forward in other areas.

Previous lessons about the consequences of abandoning Afghanistan should be fresh in everyone's mind. Now, more than three-and-a-half years after the fall of the Taliban, the growing sense of discontent on the streets of Afghanistan is palpable. If Afghanistan is allowed to slip back into being a failed state because the international community turns away after elections, that sense of discontent will be the country's major export.

Joanna Nathan is senior analyst in Kabul for the International Crisis Group, an NGO. Mark Schneider is the ICG's senior vice president and directs its Washington office.

Dreams of Democracy - Mixed hopes and fears as Afghanistan holds its first democratic parliamentary elections in more than three decades. By IWPR staff in Kabul (ARR No. 188, 16-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Millions of Afghans head to the polls on September 18, hoping to leave behind years of warfare but also fearful of what their votes may produce for the future.

At stake are seats in the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, and the provincial councils which will run local affairs and also help shape the legislature’s upper house, the Meshrano Jirga.

Fifty-five thousand police and 28,000 Afghan soldiers, backed by an international force of more than 10,000 troops, have been deployed to provide security against possible attacks by the Taleban, whose fighters are still battling a 20,000-strong US-led Coalition force.

While the massive security arrangements seem to be inspiring confidence, many voters appear to be concerned about the eventual outcome of the vote.

"If I and others don't vote for the good candidates, parliament will be full of criminals and killers," said 28-year-old Farhad in his shop at Kabul's Pashtunistan intersection, adding that he would not vote for a fundamentalist.

It was a view frequently repeated by others who spoke out vehemently against those candidates with "blood-stained hands".

Abdul Shukur, 30, from Wardak province, summed up such concerns succinctly, "Our nation is torn by war, and those who had their swords drawn yesterday should today be stopped from getting into parliament."

Those elected to parliament must focus on benefiting the whole nation, and not be swayed by ethnic or regional interests, he added.

When the polls open at 6 am on September 18, the estimated 12.5 million electorate - many of them illiterate - will have a chance to vote at polling stations across the country, some of them so isolated that donkeys and camels had to be used to bring in the election materials. Others will make their way to mosques and schools in towns and villages that have been turned into polling stations for the day. The 26,000 stations will be open until 4 pm.

Each person will cast two votes, one for a parliamentary candidate and one for the provincial council.

In the capital, Kabul, voting will be a formidable exercise. Nearly 400 candidates are standing for the 33 parliamentary seats allocated to Kabul, which has meant production of a ballot booklet carrying the photograph, symbol and number of each would-be politician. Each voter will have to search through this list for his or her chosen candidate.

Across the country’s 34 provinces, there is widespread distrust of many of the 3,000 candidates contesting the 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga.

The candidates themselves are a mixed bunch. Among them are former warlords and lower-level commanders whose militias destroyed much of Kabul and caused thousands of deaths between 1992 and 1996 in the internecine conflict between rival mujahedin groups that followed the ousting of the communist government.

They also include a former Taleban official responsible for the “promotion of virtue and prohibition of vice”, and a woman who was spurred to contest a seat by the memory of being whipped by the same official's religious police in a Kabul street.

More than 300 women are vying to enter parliament, where a minimum of 68 seats are reserved for them.

Political analyst Bashir Bezhan sees little chance of a truly representative parliament emerging. "Just as the presidential election was conducted according to the will of a few individuals, the parliamentary ones will be the same, and these people will get the parliament they want," he said

Bezhan and some other analysts worry that the vote will be affected by external influences. The international community has reportedly invested over 150 million US dollars to finance the election.

"The Americans will do whatever it takes to get their own platform implemented and obtain their chosen parliament," he said, without elaborating on what he saw as Washington's aim.

Analyst Qasim Akhgar also doubts that the election will produce true representatives of the Afghan people, and fears that it will instead be dominated by the rich and powerful.

"Foreigners are directly involved in the parliament because a huge amount has been spent and it is obvious the Afghan government does not have this kind of money. And of course those who subsidise this process will have their goals fulfilled in this parliament," he said.

Akhgar added that independent candidates would have no chance of getting elected because they did not have the necessary backing. "This parliament won't be an effective one," he concluded.

Vetting was supposed to have eliminated any candidate with current links to armed groups, found guilty of war crimes, or still hanging on to a government post. But the process has been widely viewed as being ineffective.

Just five days before Sunday's poll, three supporters of a parliamentary candidate were wounded when gunmen attacked the convoy in which he was travelling in the northern Takhar province. According to press reports, the candidate, a former militia commander, accused his rivals of carrying out the attack.
Two high-profile parliamentary candidates, Mohammad Younus Qanuni and Salam Rakiti, traded accusations of mass murder and human rights abuses in a televised programme, each saying the other should be struck off the ballot list.

Neither candidate has been charged with war crimes or other human rights abuses, one of the criteria for disqualification.

There is confusion over whether the Taleban, ousted by US forces in 2001, intends to try to disrupt the poll on election day. The group’s spokesman, Lutfullah Hakimi, has said the Taleban will not attack voting stations because it does not want to be responsible for injuring innocent people.

But his statement comes against a background of increased violence in which the Islamic movement has been blamed for the killing of at least six candidates and five election workers.

Hakimi dismisses the election as a sideshow in the Taleban’s war, which he says will go on beyond the ballot box until foreign forces and the government they support are driven out.

Officers with the US and Afghan militaries, and those of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, say they are ready for any eventuality and are confident they can ensure the elections will not be disrupted, a view shared by many of the capital’s residents.

The owner of a Kabul shop, who asked not to be named, said, "Although the opposition group [Taleban] may try their best to disrupt the process, I don't think they will succeed."

He believed everyone should vote "because this election is seen as a step towards real democracy and it means we will have a body with the power and authority to be involved in government affairs".

His optimism was shared by 34-year-old Akhtar Mohammad, who owns a shop at the Nader Pashtun intersection. Once parliament is elected, he believes many problems will be solved. "I'll vote for a person who is honest, competent, Muslim and whose hands are not stained with people's blood," he said.

Aziz Ahmad, a lecturer at the law faculty of Kabul University, was optimistic about the composition of the new national assembly. "I think Afghans know who they should vote for," he said.

But some are not so confident about the elections. A shoeshine man waiting on the pavement for customers told IWPR he thought parliament was "a waste of time and money".

"Away with you, brother! What’s parliament and what does it do?” he said aggressively. “Find another person to talk to. What benefit did we get from voting for Karzai?"

Parties Fume on the Sidelines - Political groups have been frozen out of the parliamentary election campaign, and many say it is part of a master-plan to weaken the legislature. By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 188, 16-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting

The assembly that finally emerges from the September 18 parliamentary elections is likely to bear little resemblance to a viable parliament.

Observers of the political process say that if this happens, it will be far more than a failure by Afghans to understand parliamentary democracy. Instead, they argue, it is part of a well-thought-out plan to keep the legislature fractured and fragile so that it cannot present a challenge to the executive.

President Hamed Karzai has been ruling by decree since he was installed as the interim head of state in December 2001. His power increased after his landslide election as president in October 2004. It may be understandable that he would be reluctant to give up his near-imperial powers, but according to political analysts, the tactic that has been chosen will do little to bolster Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy.

“Democracy does not work without political parties,” said Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst at the think-tank Crisis Group. “We are not going to see a strong parliament, we are going to see a parliament of 249 individuals.”

This is largely the fault of the electoral method - the Single Non-Transferable Vote, SNTV, where each voter casts a ballot for one individual, rather than selecting a party list with a distinct platform. This leaves parties with little opportunity to foster debate on issues, promote their programmes, or enforce party discipline among their candidates. Instead, each of the nearly 3,000 parliamentary hopefuls is trying to stitch together a patchwork constituency based on ethnic identity and personal ties.

Nathan says that is a recipe for a weak and splintered legislature, “Even the most optimistic say it will take six months to a year to form workable caucuses.”

When the election law was being drawn up, the parties lobbied hard to be given a role in the campaign. They insisted that up to 70 per cent of the seats be apportioned according to party lists.
In the end, they got nothing. The electoral law even prohibits party symbols in campaign literature and on the ballot.

“We were one hundred percent against this voting system,” said Aziz Ahmad Asef, public relations officer for the Afghan Millat party. “It is clear that those communities in the world where political parties have no role are not democratic.”

But the decision to go with SNTV was made by the government and by the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, UNAMA, which has helped shape the political process. “Why they did it this way I do not know,” said Asef.

Certainly there were understandable reasons to keep political groups from trying to dominate the process. For one thing, the sheer number of registered political parties - 77 at present, with 16 more ready to come on board - could make a party system unwieldy, to say the least.

The flood of party registrations can partly be explained by the leniency of the requirements. Only 700 signatures, a party platform and a list of top officials are needed for grant registration.

“Of course this is not enough,” said Abdulghias Elyasi, who heads the justice ministry department charged with registering political parties. “But this is a decision made by the cabinet and we cannot do anything about it. We simply give the JEMB [Joint Electoral Management Body] a list of all the parties with their platform, their symbols and their addresses.”

Some government officials say privately that up to 90 per cent of the parties amount to little more than personal followings, and would not withstand real scrutiny. But, says Nathan, this is part of the political process. “That always happens at the beginning,” she said. “People don’t have to vote for [these parties].”

In any case, say observers, the plethora of groups will naturally thin out or amalgamate, “I am sure that all these parties cannot run forever, and some will join together, and we will have a small number of true political parties,” said Asef.

The justice ministry was opposed to SNTV, according to Elyasi. “We wanted to give the parties a role for the elections. But the cabinet and the JEMB are stronger than us, and we can’t tell them what to do,” he said.

The SNTV system had two main selling points: first, it was simple and replicated the process adopted during last October’s presidential elections. Second, the Afghan people are suspicious of political parties, associating them with communism or the gunmen and warlords who left the country in ruins after years of civil war.

But Nathan says that this fear was blown out of proportion to give the government the clout it needed to push the SNTV system through.

“I think there is widespread distrust of parties,” said Nathan. “It is understandable, certainly. There were the communists and the groups associated with factional fighting. But I think these fears are being exaggerated and used by the political elite, who basically want a weak parliament.”

The old former mujahedin factions, the “jihadi” warlords who are among the most feared and despised in the country, are still very much in the mix. “What this system is doing is discouraging the emergence of new, democratic parties,” insisted Nathan. Many party activists agree that parliament will be the poorer without a strong party presence.

“This election is the heart of democracy, and one of the most important components of democracy are political parties,” said Hussain Yasa, the editor-in-chief of Outlook, an independent daily, who is also political officer for Hezb-e-Wahdat-e-Islami-e-Mardom-e-Afghanistan, the predominantly Hazara party led by Haji Mohammad Mohaqeq. “But this system does not benefit democracy or the country. People with money and power may get into parliament, and then we will have problems. It will all be ethnic blocs, not parties.”

But, he said, the parties had no choice, as the system was forced on them by the government, “They did not want a strong parliament.” Asked about the need for a simple system to appeal to an unsophisticated electorate, Yasa scoffed at the idea.

“The government says Afghans don’t know about politics,” he said. “But during the past 25 years the people of Afghanistan have been through the lot, and they certainly know enough about politics now.” Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

JTF2 in high gear conducting counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan

OTTAWA (CP) - Canadian special forces soldiers in southern Afghanistan have killed Taliban and al-Qaida rebels over multiple operations in recent months as they work secretly in small units, military sources say.

The modest contingent of troops from Joint Task Force 2 is an integral part of coalition efforts to stem the tide of insurgency that has risen since campaigning began for Sunday's parliamentary elections.

JTF2 commandos have joined counterparts from the United States and some British Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, in fighting that has claimed more than 1,200 lives in six months, say the Canadian defence sources.

Authorities wouldn't - or couldn't - put numbers on the dead. Some engagements are long-range; others are close-in. Some involve a degree of infiltration into enemy compounds and "behind enemy lines" - though no lines really exist in the mountainous and desert terrain where they operate.

The commandos, some of whom speak a smattering of area dialects, often work in collaboration with locals who know the lay of the land. Using specialized weapons and equipment, Canadian snipers have played their deadly cat-mouse games at night and in the 50-degree heat of Afghan summer days.

Many of their victims - whom the chief of defence staff recently called "murderers and scumbags" - never knew what hit them, one source told The Canadian Press.

Beyond acknowledging that JTF2 is in Afghanistan, defence officials and the federal government have maintained their usual strict silence about the unit's exploits.

They plan a briefing on Tuesday, where Defence Minister Bill Graham promised military authorities will provide a few more details about what JTF2 has been up to since it deployed to Kandahar earlier this summer.

But, without providing many specifics, defence sources who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that the highly trained commandos are bringing their full repetoire to bear in Afghanistan.

"They're doing counter-insurgency operations," said one official. "They're quite vigorous ones." Canadian special forces have maintained an almost-constant presence in Afghanistan since Ottawa first sent troops to the former terrorist haven in early 2002.

They've done everything, from providing security to the prime minister and NATO commanders in Kabul, to launching search-destroy missions in hostile territory far to the south.

The unit, with several U.S. counterparts, earned a Presidential Citation for heroism in battle in Afghanistan in 2002, but Canadians have heard few details of its accomplishments, due partly to its size.

Between the SEALs, the Green Berets, army Rangers, Marine recon, Delta Force and air force special operations units, the Americans have tens of thousands of special forces soldiers.

The Defence Department has never released figures, but it is believed that - even with a post-9/11 expansion - the Ottawa-area unit has fewer than 1,000 members.

The unit says its small size makes its members more vulnerable to identification and possibly retaliation, and it claims secrecy is one of the elements that sets it apart from other units of its kind.

"Being open and transparent about certain aspects of the unit could seriously compromise the effectiveness of Canada's counter-terrorism capability," says a National Defence statement on JTF2.

"History has shown only too clearly that terrorist organizations will use information about a unit's personnel, weapons, tactics and procedures to great effect by modifying their methodologies to counter the very forces designed to defeat them."

With specialized qualifications such as Pathfinder and Ranger badges, many regular reconnaissance soldiers in Canada are considered on par with almost any U.S. special forces unit.

Canadian snipers - both regular force and JTF2 - are regarded as the world's best. One broke a 30-year-old record in 2002, killing an enemy soldier with his .50-calibre rifle from 2,443 metres - almost 2 1/2 kilometres.

Regular-force snipers earned U.S. Bronze Stars for their stellar work in Afghanistan three years ago. Canada's elite and highly trained JTF2, which accepts fewer than one in 10 applicants, is considered among the best of its kind.

The nature of their bloody work - which can involve covert "hits" on enemy commanders and operatives or pitched battles with war-hardened fighters - is another reason Ottawa doesn't like to talk about what its commandos do.

JTF2 kills people, and that runs contrary to many Canadians' idea that their military are strictly peacekeepers and conciliators who rebuild schools and hand out aid to refugees and other victims of war.

Based at the Kandahar airport, the special forces troops are working under U.S. command, independently from Canadian soldiers running a provincial reconstruction team nearby or peacemakers patroling under NATO in Kabul.

The defence chief, Gen. Rick Hillier, made headlines in July when he said Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their followers are "detestable murderers and scumbags."

"We are not the Public Service of Canada," he declared. "We are not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people."

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]