KABUL — An Afghan official says that at least 16 people, including four Czech soldiers, were killed on Tuesday in a suicide attack near a clinic in eastern Afghanistan. The Czech Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday four Czech troops were killed and another was badly wounded after the blast. The ministry said it will release more details later in the day. Wahid Seddiqi, spokesman for the provincial governor of Parwan province said the soldiers, at least 10 civilians, and two police officers were killed when a suicide bomber attacked Afghan and foreign forces near Charakar, the provincial capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to the media. The violence came as Afghanistan was mired in an electoral crisis after one of the candidates in the presidential elections, Abdullah Abdullah, refused to accept any results until millions of ballots are audited for fraud. Afghan officials released preliminary election results Monday showing former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai well in the lead for the presidency but said no winner could be declared because millions of ballots were being audited for fraud. Meanwhile, the Philippines on Tuesday urged 4,000 workers in Afghanistan to leave the country amid an election stand-off that has raised fears of instability and ethnic unrest. “The Department of Foreign Affairs has issued Alert Level 3 (voluntary repatriation phase) for Afghanistan due to the heightened tensions in that country following the conduct of the presidential elections last June 14,” it said in a statement. “With this announcement, Filipinos in Afghanistan are strongly encouraged to volunteer to return to the Philippines.” The election stand-off has sparked concern that protests could spiral into ethnic violence and even lead to a return to the fighting between warlords that ravaged Afghanistan during the 1992-1996 civil war. — Agencies
