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Edition: U.S. Article Comments (1) Save Email Print Reprints Most Popular Most Shared Gales, aftershocks shake quake hit New Zealand city | Video 6:22am EDT God did not create the universe, says Hawking 02 Sep 2010 IMF's Lipsky says moderate world recovery underway 1:07am EDT Firm can't fire man for 1.8 cent theft 03 Sep 2010 German party mistakenly hands out porn pens to kids 03 Sep 2010 Motorcycling-Japan's Tomizawa dies after crash - Italian TV 8:48am EDT As temperatures soar, Japanese turn to ghost houses 02 Sep 2010 Obama says his economic policies halted "bleeding" 04 Sep 2010 Steve Jobs: iTunes 10 Icon Does Not 'Suck' 03 Sep 2010 Thousands protest French clampdown against Roma 04 Sep 2010 German party mistakenly hands out porn pens to kids 03 Sep 2010 IMF's Lipsky says moderate world recovery underway 1:07am EDT God did not create the universe, says Hawking 02 Sep 2010 Images from Hubble 29 Apr 2010 Strange and unusual 26 Aug 2010 Obama says his economic policies halted "bleeding" 04 Sep 2010 Muslim cleric calls for beheading of Dutch politician 03 Sep 2010 Samsung to challenge Apple's iPad with own tablet 03 Sep 2010 Gales, aftershocks shake quake hit New Zealand city | Video 6:22am EDT Common bone drugs linked to esophageal cancer risk 02 Sep 2010 NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. NASDAQ delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here. Elections 2010 Economy weighs on midterms Tough economic times and aggressive campaigning by the Republicans weigh heavy on President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Follow Reuters for complete analysis, opinion and polls ahead of the November midterm elections. Full Coverage Taliban vow to disrupt Afghanistan election Tweet This Share on LinkedIn Share on Facebook Related News Afghan calls grow for answers on Kabulbank crisis 11:32am EDT Analysis & Opinion The contours of an Afghan settlement Afghan election: Industrial-scale corruption, or real hope? Related Topics World » Elections 2010 » Politics » Afghanistan » Barack Obama » By Sayed Salahuddin KABUL | Sun Sep 5, 2010 11:32am EDT KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban said on Sunday they would attempt to disrupt elections this month and warned Afghans to boycott the vote, the first explicit threat against the poll by the hardline Islamists. The threat came just a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he would soon announce members of a peace council to pursue talks with the Taliban, another step in his plan for reconciliation with the insurgents. The September 18 parliamentary election is seen as a litmus test of stability in Afghanistan before President Barack Obama conducts a war strategy review in December that will examine the pace and scale of U.S. troop withdrawals from July 2011. Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence is at its worst across Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. "This (poll) is a foreign process for the sake of further occupation of Afghanistan and we are asking the Afghan nation to boycott it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. "We are against it and will try with the best of our ability to block it. Our first targets will be the foreign forces and next the Afghan ones," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. Security is a major concern ahead of the vote, with four candidates killed already in recent weeks and dozens of campaign workers wounded, according to the United Nations and government officials. Some of the attacks have been blamed on the Taliban. Another candidate was wounded, and 10 of his campaign workers killed, in an air strike in the north on Friday, Karzai has said. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says the strike killed a senior member of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Taliban launched about 130 attacks against last year's presidential poll but failed to disrupt it significantly. Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who came second behind Karzai last year, said he was worried about security. "Not only has it not improved in the last few months, it has deteriorated," Abdullah told a news conference in Kabul. POLLING CENTRES CLOSED According to Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC), 938 out of a planned 6,835 polling centers will not open on election day because of security fears. "While it is a difficult decision not to open the polling centres in certain locations, we agree with the decision of the IEC to protect the security of voters, electoral workers and the secure and effective scrutiny of polling centres and voting procedures," the United Nations said in a statement on Sunday. Apart from security, graft and cronyism are also major concerns ahead of the vote after last year's fraud-marred presidential election, in which a third of votes for Karzai were thrown out as fake. The U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said it was concerned some public officials were using their positions to help certain unidentified candidates and urged the government to protect the poll's impartiality and integrity. Abdullah withdrew from a second round of voting in last year's presidential ballot after the ECC found evidence of widespread fraud and ballot stuffing. This year, Abdullah said it had become "like a trend" for election officials to approach candidates and ask for money in return for votes. "The (ECC) should take serious actions in this regard," Abdullah said. "I will urge the people of Afghanistan to report on this. It is your destiny that will be decided." The ECC has been significantly weakened this year, with only two of its three commissioners U.N.-appointed foreigners instead of the three foreigners it had last year. The commission said on Sunday 76 candidates had been disqualified so far for a range of reasons, from improper registration to links with warlords and private militias. About 2,500 candidates are running for 249 seats in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, in Afghanistan's second parliamentary vote since the Taliban were ousted. The issue of corruption frequently strains ties between Karzai and his Western backers, and the vote is also seen as a test of Karzai's credibility. Many in Washington believe rampant corruption significantly weakens the central government and hampers efforts to build up Afghanistan's security forces so that they can eventually take over from NATO-led forces, allowing foreign troops to leave. Long queues have formed outside branches of Kabulbank, Afghanistan's top private lender, since it was learned last week that the bank's top two executives had been replaced amid media allegations of corruption. Karzai's government has assured the bank's depositors, which include 250,000 state employees, that deposits have not been lost and that the directors resigned to meet new regulations. (Additional reporting by Jonathon Burch and Tim Gaynor in KABUL; Editing by Paul Tait and Charles Dick) World Elections 2010 Politics Afghanistan Barack Obama Comments See All Comments (1) | Post Comment Sep 05, 2010 10:56am EDT Multiple mistakes, before and now mark Afghanistan as a failed cause. We started it right and will end it wrong. Good points - CIA rally of northern alliance to strike instantaneously against al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11. - Deployment of highly trained U.S. special forces to augment/amplify the nontraditional warfare operations. - Deployment of sophisticated technologies to target pockets of insurgents. - Clearing of Kabal and other areas of the country forcing insurgents to the mountainous enclave of Tora Bora. - Payoff of warlords and tribal leaders. They understand money and that was the best way to get things done at the time. The mistakes: - Pakistan’s border regions were not shut down before the CIA-coordinated offensive began. - The U.S. did not accept Iran’s offer for assistance in the region. We could be working with them now instead of a tit-for-tat verbal conflict over nukes. At a minimum, it would have sealed the borders between Iran and Afghanistan. - The U.S. resumed the Pakistani connection previously established during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, instead of dropping all reliance on Pakistan and sealing the Afghan border on the Afghan side with U.S. conventional forces. This would have allowed us to squeeze the Taliban and al Qaeda to death in and around Tora Bora without Pakistani corruption and cooperation with their Taliban. The engagement would have ended within two years. - Withdrawal/reduction of special forces to Iraq and insertion of NATO forces – big mistake. It’s like pulling the first string varsity team and replacing them with freshman third stringers. - Allowing massive military contractor deployments to Afghanistan. This dilutes the focus from mission success to capitalistic revenue generation. With revenue coming in, business owners don’t want the demand to decrease and the revenue stream to dry up – they want to stoke it for all it’s worth (and more). - Allowing Karzai to do what he thinks is best for the country. He is not a strong leader and has limited control over a small portion of the capitol. Negotiating with the Taliban is a ridiculous idea. The Taliban will agree to anything now and overthrow the hollow shell of a democracy later. There are other good points and mistakes that have been made, these are just a few that come to mind which could have made this entire operation a rapid surgical destruction of al Qaeda and the Afghani Taliban. finneganG Report As Abusive See All Comments (1) Add a Comment *We welcome comments that advance the story directly or with relevant tangential information. We try to block comments that use offensive language or appear to be spam and review comments frequently to ensure they meet our standards. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. © Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions: Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom United States Reuters Contact Us Advertise With Us Help Journalism Handbook Archive Site Index Video Index Reader Feedback Mobile Newsletters RSS Podcasts Widgets Your View Analyst Research Thomson Reuters Copyright Disclaimer Privacy Professional Products Professional Products Support Financial Products About Thomson Reuters Careers Online Products Acquisitions Monthly Buyouts Venture Capital Journal International Financing Review Project Finance International PEhub.com PE Week FindLaw Reuters on Facebook Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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