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Roadside bomb kills 12 in Afghanistan's west
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 03 - 08 - 2009


A Taliban roadside
bomb killed at least 12 people on Monday in a key commercial
city in western Afghanistan, officials said, amid worsening
security before a presidential poll this month, according to Reuters.
The remote-controlled device may have been aimed at a local
police chief but killed mainly passers-by when it exploded
during rush hour near a blood bank in Herat, a relatively
peaceful city near the Iranian border.
Violence has escalated ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential
poll which is seen as a key test of Western-led efforts to
stabilise Afghanistan.
Nine foreign soldiers, including six Americans, were killed
in the south and east, where the Taliban is strongest, in the
last three days.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who took over
on Saturday, said he wanted Afghanistan's own forces to play a
greater role in providing security over the next four years.
"I believe that during my term as NATO secretary-general,
Afghans must take over lead responsibility for security in most
of their country," he told a news conference in Brussels.
The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the election and have
called on Afghans to boycott the ballot, the second direct
presidential poll since the Islamists were toppled in 2001.
In Ghazni province, a Taliban stronghold southeast of the
capital, insurgents have posted notices in mosques and to walls,
warning people to stay at home a day before the poll.
"In order that this illegitimate process faces failure,
fighters will intensively attack polling centres, and warn
voters to stay home one day before," one item posted overnight
read.
Among those killed in Monday's blast in Herat were a woman,
a 12-year-old girl and two policemen, said provincial security
commander General Esmatullah Alizai.
A Reuters witness saw several women and children being
carried out of ambulances into a military hospital in Herat.
Alizai said 12 people were killed and Khoja Issa, a district
police chief, was seriously wounded. Taliban spokesman Qari
Mohammad Yousuf said Issa was the target of the attack.
In Kabul, the Interior Ministry put the death toll at 10 and
said 29 were wounded. Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned
the Herat bombing as "a terrorist attack".
Herat, one of Afghanistan's three largest cities, is usually
a safe and prosperous centre because of its strong trade links
with nearby Iran and Turkmenistan.
July was the deadliest month for foreign forces in
Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, with at least
71 killed. August has so far followed that deadly trend.
A total of 41 U.S. troops were killed in July, compared to
the previous monthly high of 26 in September 2008.
Britain has also suffered heavy battlefield casualties, with
the 22 killed in July taking its toll in the eight-year-old war
to 191, 12 more than were killed in Iraq.
Attacks across Afghanistan this year had already reached
their worst level since 2001. They escalated further after
thousands of U.S. Marines launched a major operation in southern
Helmand province last month, long a Taliban stronghold and the
source of most of the opium that helps fund the insurgency.
The U.S. operation, along with a similar British offensive,
is the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional
strategy to defeat the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan.
Civilians are also dying at record rates. The United Nations
said last week 1,013 civilians had been killed between January
and June this year, up from 818 in the same period last year.
The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for 59
percent of those deaths, the United Nations said.
There have also been a series of election-related attacks,
with one of Karzai's campaign convoys ambushed in southeastern
Ghazni on Saturday. A bodyguard was killed and a candidate for
provincial elections was wounded.
The election is seen as a test for Obama's new strategy, as
well as Kabul's ability to stage a legitimate and credible poll.
Karzai is seen as a clear front-runner in a field of 35
challengers. While his main rivals, former foreign minister
Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, have
been campaigning vigorously, Karzai has been quietly building
coalitions among the large field of contenders.
On Monday, he announced Abdul Majeed Sameem, a minor
candidate from Jawzjan province in the north, had become the
latest to pull out in favour of Karzai.
Poor security appears one of the few threats to the man who
has ruled since 2001 and won the first direct vote in 2004.
Low voter turn-out in the ethnic Pashtun south, Karzai's
power base, could raise the possibility of a second run-off vote
if no one gets more than 50 percent in the first round.


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