An escalation of violence is fueling concerns over the security situation in Afghanistan just two days ahead of a crucial poll. A suicide car bomb attacked a NATO convoy today (18 August) on the outskirts of Kabul, killing at least seven civilians and wounding more than 50 people, agencies reported. Afghans working for the United Nations were among the dead and wounded.
In a separate accident, two American service members have been killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan.
Earlier in the day, Taliban fighters fired a rocket into the grounds of the presidential palace in Kabul. On 15 August a suicide car bomb attack killed seven people and wounded 100 outside the NATO-led ISAF headquarters in Kabul, near the U.S. embassy.
Destabilisation strategy
Taliban militants seek to destabilise the country and discourage Afghanis from voting, as a challenge to US president Barack Obama’s strategy to give more resources and strategic direction to the NATO mission in Afghanistan (EurActiv 16/04/09). The press reported Taliban threats to cut off anyone’s fingers tainted by indelible ink during the vote.
The EU, which decided to engage more in Afghanistan by wielding 'soft power', including financial and technical assistance for the presidential elections, fears that the gap between the expected two rounds of elections will be used by Taliban and warlords to disrupt Western strategies, sources told this website.
Polls show that incumbent president Hamid Karzai would win Thursday’s vote, but he would not gather the majority needed to avoid a second round.
Sweden, who holds the EU rotating presidency, opened an embassy in Kabul last year. Its ambassador Svante Kilander expressed his satisfaction that Kabul is covered with electoral posters and that a debate organised by the embassy took place between candidates.
”But there is a risk that there will be a second round of elections and then the elections may be delayed,” the ambassador said in a press release, published by the EU presidency website.
‘Imperfect elections’
Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt recently admitted in an op-ed article in the Stockholm daily Aftonbladet, that the resurgence of the Taliban is partly due to 'initial mistakes' and the failure to create 'a functioning justice system and reasonably competent administration' in Afghanistan.
“The elections will unlikely be perfect but they are important for Afghanistan's future and therefore for the stability and developments in the important region that links Central and South Asia,' Bildt wrote. In early September, Bildt is to host an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers and a likely topic will be European peace and development efforts in Afghanistan.
Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, is Karzai’s main challenger whom he is expected to face at the run-off in early October. Abdullah accuses the incumbent president to ignore corruption and to release opium traders from jail. Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali is mulled to control drug trade in the province of Kandahar.
Karzai is also criticised for choosing as vice presidential candidate Mohammed Qasim Fahim, a warlord for the Northern Alliance (the main opposition during the Taliban rule and a U.S. ally in defeating the Taliban in 2001). Karzai also has reportedly enlisted as his supporters Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former warlord and prime minister, considered by the US as a "global terrorist" and Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord, who was in exile, but returned safely to Afghanistan days ago with a government clearance.
In fact, Karzai pledged that if he is re-elected, he will invite members of the Taliban, ‘to make peace’. The US and NATO, on the other side, reportedly reject the process of reconciliation at this stage, as in their view this could become possible from a position of strength, not of weakness.
The Western press also criticised Karzai for recently approving a law condoning marital rape, which in fact permits Shia men to refuse to give food to their wives if they do not have sex with them. It was also reported that the US and Britain had decided not to react, from fears they could aggravate the situation on the eve of the poll.
Denmark, however, issued a firmer response. Per Stig Moller, the Foreign Minister, said he had written to his Afghan counterpart to express his concern.
