Afghan women poll workers killed.
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 06-26-2004 - 3:15pm |
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/06/26/afghan.blast.reut/index.html
A bomb killed two women working for the U.N.-Afghan electoral body and wounded nine female poll workers and two children on Saturday, in one of the worst attacks on preparations for Afghanistan's elections.
The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which was a further setback for President Hamid Karzai's efforts to bring peace to a country U.S. President George W. Bush has described as a role model for Iraq.
The blast destroyed a bus in the eastern city of Jalalabad which was taking the Afghan women to register voters for the polls scheduled for September, which the Taliban and allied Islamic militants have vowed to disrupt.
"We did this because we warned people not to get involved in the election process," Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said after contacting Reuters by telephone. "This only strengthens the foundations of the American-backed government."
He said the guerrillas had also killed two U.S. Marines in an ambush in the eastern province of Kunar on Thursday night, but had released a Turk kidnapped in March while working on a reconstruction project, partly because he was a Muslim.
U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the Jalalabad attack was probably aimed at discouraging women from voting.
He said two women were killed while three were in critical condition, along with a child who was accompanying his mother. He said nine women suffered lighter injuries.
Earlier, he said a child was also killed in the blast.
Jalalabad police chief Mohammad Younis Noorzai said the bomb was planted inside the minibus. "It was a locally hired van and we have arrested the driver, who was also wounded," he said.
The U.N. spokesman said the number of women registering in the eastern region had been rising fast despite traditional restrictions on women's rights.
"They will not reach their goal," he said of the attackers.
U.N. Special Representative Jean Arnault, who this week urged NATO to urgently step up its peacekeeping presence in Afghanistan, said he was "profoundly outraged."
The attack was just the latest on the voter registration process and an upsurge in militant violence in the run-up to the polls has raised doubts as to whether they can be held on time.
About 4.5 million of nearly 10 million eligible voters have registered, but the process has been slowed in the south and east by militant violence. Female registration has lagged, partly due to problems recruiting female workers.
The attack came just after Karzai appealed to NATO on Friday to honor its pledge to send more troops to protect the presidential and parliamentary polls.
At a summit in Istanbul next week, NATO is to announce that its 6,400-strong peacekeeping force will take command of four or five military-civilian reconstruction teams in northern Afghanistan and deploy about 1,200 troops for the polls.
But this will fall short of at least 5,000 extra troops the government and the United Nations say are needed, and the deployments will be to relatively secure areas, not to the south and east where militants are most active.
On Friday, Human Rights Watch said NATO "foot-dragging" had contributed to worsening security, adding that blame for a failure of the polls would rest on Washington and NATO.
Analysts say Bush, Karzai's main supporter, wants a September poll so that he has a foreign policy success to balance against Iraq before his own re-election bid in November.
Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said the attack should be a "strong message" to NATO.
"If the international community wants a peaceful transition in Afghanistan, there definitely needs to be an expansion of NATO into more insecure places," he said.
Until Saturday, at least 33 foreign and Afghan aid workers had been killed in 18 months, severely disrupting aid and reconstruction work, as well as hampering election preparations.


These morons cannot stand the thought of women as equals. I cannot begin to understand how someone with a mom, perhaps daughters, sisters, grandmothers... can think so little of them that they would kill to prevent them from being equal. Talk about a warped sense of entitlement. While this country is nothing like that, some men still cling to tired notions of the past, of women not being free to govern their own bodies, to not choose what is best for them in their life... this is what happens when that attitude gets out of control.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/06/27/afghan.killing.reut/index.html
Taliban guerrillas kidnapped and then killed 16 people in an Afghan province after finding them with voter registration cards for the country's September elections, officials said on Sunday.
The killings on Friday night in the province of Zabul were the most serious attack yet on the elections, which the Taliban and allied Islamic militants have vowed to disrupt.
News of the violence came a day after a bomb killed two women working for the U.N.-Afghan electoral body and wounded nine women poll workers and two children in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Haji Obaidullah, chief of Khas Uruzgan district in the central province of Uruzgan, said the guerrillas stopped a bus carrying 17 civilians through the district on Friday.
They took the passengers to Dai Chopan district of the neighboring province of Zabul and killed all but one when they found they were carrying voter registration cards, he quoted the lone survivor as saying.
"They were apparently killed because they were carrying the registration cards," he said.
A spokesman for the United Nations, which is overseeing voter registration, said he had no information about the incident.
Uruzgan police chief Roozi Khan said several hundred U.S. and Afghan soldiers backed by air support were searching for the villagers' bodies and the attackers.
"We have been told that the group involved in this incident has hidden in Deh Rawud district of Uruzgan," he told Reuters.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for killing the women in Jalalabad on Saturday by bombing their bus. He said the guerrillas had warned Afghans not to become involved in elections that would only strengthen the U.S.-backed government.
Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the Taliban had killed 19 people kidnapped in Uruzgan on Friday but none of them were civilians.
"Six of them belonged to the elections commission and 13 were government soldiers," he said when contacted by satellite telephone.
An upsurge in militant violence in the run-up to the polls has raised doubts as to whether they can be held on time.
About 4.5 million of nearly 10 million voters eligible have registered, but the process has been slowed in the south and east by militant threats and violence. Female registration has lagged, partly because of problems recruiting female election workers.
The latest attacks are further setbacks for President Hamid Karzai's efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, a country U.S. President George W. Bush has described as a role model for Iraq.
Karzai appealed to NATO on Friday to make good its pledge to send more troops to protect the presidential and parliamentary polls to ensure they can be held as scheduled.
At a summit in Istanbul starting on Monday, NATO is to announce that its 6,400-strong peacekeeping force will take command of more military-civilian reconstruction teams in northern Afghanistan and deploy about 1,200 troops for the polls.
But this will fall short of the figure of at least 5,000 extra troops the government and the United Nations say are needed, and the deployments will be to relatively secure areas, not to the south and east where militants are most active.
Analysts say Bush, Karzai's main supporter, wants a September poll so that he has a foreign policy success to balance against Iraq before his own re-election bid in November.
Whether this is correct or not, I suspect it is correct, Bush's record in Afghanistan is shameful. We abandoned them short of funds to finish a civil war we started. Years later, because bin Laden is still free, we put pressure on the Pakastanis to flush the "terrorists" out. The capture of bin Laden would also be good for GWB. The fact that the oppressive Taliban were rebuilding to retake control or the fact that Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons, may degenerate into a civil war, was no concern of Bush. Does this man only think about his political image?
I wish it possible we could take all the women and children here, and see what these idiots left behind to fend for themselves think then.
Sigh. A classic case of acting before thinking. When I was in college, I remember reading a humorous blurb about a Texan who sees the Leaning Tower of Pisa and says "hey, we can straighten that out for ya." I fear that is the thinking prevalent in the White House.
I wish it possible we could take all the women and children here, and see what these idiots left behind to fend for themselves think then.
I agree!
After the 11 September tragedy, I read a story about Mohammed Atta... when he received his masters, he refused to shake hands with the head of the program... a woman. He also left instructions that no women were to go to his grave site, including his mom. This guy lived and breathed misogyny... it's amazing people actually think that way. What did women ever do to deserve this? Birth him?