Afghan Elections a Go Despite Violence

06/28/2005

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Landmark legislative elections in Afghanistan will be held as planned in September despite an upsurge in rebel violence that has raised fears the polls could be threatened, the president’s spokesman said Tuesday.

President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said that the elections “will be successful.”

“I would like to emphasize that Afghanistan will not go back ... the progress we have made can never be reversed regardless of how hard the terrorists and the enemies of Afghanistan try,” spokesman Jawed Ludin told reporters.

His comments come after three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed a reported 465 suspected insurgents, 29 U.S. troops, 38 Afghan police and soldiers and 125 civilians.

The violence has left much of the country off-limits to aid workers and has reinforced concerns that the war here is not winding down but in fact worsening into an Iraq-style conflict. Afghan and U.S. officials have predicted that the situation will deteriorate in the lead-up to the polls - the next key step toward democracy after a quarter-century of war.

An 8,300-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force, which is responsible for security in Kabul and elsewhere, has said it may add another 3,000 soldiers to its ranks ahead of the elections. The United States, which is leading a separate coalition of about 20,000 troops, is keeping a battalion on standby as a rapid reaction force if needed.

Last week, the United Nations’ top envoy for Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, warned in New York that the bloodshed threatens the Sept. 18 elections.

He said the insurgents have more money, better weapons and good radios to spread propaganda ahead of the parliamentary vote. The envoy warned that the rebels “are demonstrating increased cruelty and blind violence.”

Ludin’s comments came a day after Karzai lashed out at the Taliban and its leader, Mullah Omar.

“You are not leading an Islamic life by killing your people, destroying your country,” he said in comments broadcast late Monday on state-run Afghan National TV. “You are killing the sons of Afghanistan.”

Karzai said he was “very happy about the victory” last week in a massive battle against rebels in Miana Shien district in the country’s south that left 178 insurgents dead. He promised to rush government aid into the area now that the insurgents had been killed, captured or driven away.

“People are living in such terrible poverty there. They have no food. The place has no government,” he said.

In the latest fighting, militants ambushed a police convoy in eastern Laghman province late Monday, killing three officers and wounding the provincial police chief, said local police official Zalmay Mazlumyar.