KABUL, 23 August 2005 — Taleban fighters will not attack polling stations during next month’s election in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the guerrillas said yesterday, but he vowed that the war against the government and US forces would go on. US and Afghan government troops have killed more than 110 militants over the past few weeks in aggressive operations aimed at ensuring security for the Sept. 18 election, the US military said.
“We have decided not to target polling stations in civilian areas,” a spokesman for the militant group, Abdul Latif Hakimi, said by telephone from an undisclosed location. “US and Afghan forces are setting up polling stations in crowded areas which if attacked will cause big losses,” said Hakimi, who government and security officials believe is the main Taleban spokesman.
About 1,000 people, most of them Taleban fighters, have been killed in clashes, ambushes and bomb blasts this year, raising concern about the election, particularly in the country’s most-troubled areas in the south and east. US forces have suffered 47 deaths in combat in Afghanistan this year, four in a blast on Sunday, their worst casualty rate in the country since arriving in late 2001 to force the Taleban from power.
Despite the violence, Afghan government and US officials say the vote, the country’s next big step on a difficult path to stability, will not be disrupted. The Taleban have condemned the election and warned people not to take part but have not threatened to attack polling stations.
Hakimi said Taleban attacks would go on. “Our movement is not restricted to the polls,” he said. “Our aim is not only to disrupt the elections, our attacks will continue even after the elections.” The US military says it is involved in aggressive operations to ensure polling security and 105 militants have been killed in a series of clashes over recent weeks in two provinces. “ANA and coalition forces continue to aggressively establish enduring security,” US spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore told a briefing, referring to the US-trained Afghan National Army.
About 65 militants have been killed in 25 clashes in Zabul province in the south over the past week, while about 40 were killed in fighting in Kunar province in the east over the last several weeks, she said. Kunar, near the Pakistani border, was the scene in June of the heaviest US casualties in a combat incident in Afghanistan. Sixteen American troops were killed when militants shot down their helicopter during a mission to rescue a four-man team trapped in a firefight.
Three members of the trapped team were killed and one rescued. The United States heads a 20,000-strong international force in Afghanistan fighting Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants and hunting for their leaders. Another 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers are also helping with security for the parliamentary and provincial elections.
Hundreds of US Marines and Afghan forces have killed more than 40 suspected militants in the past week in an operation to take a remote mountain valley from insurgents who had inflicted the deadliest blow on American forces since the Taleban regime was ousted nearly four years ago, the US military said. The operation, which concluded over the weekend, was aimed at rebels believed responsible for twin attacks, including the downing of a helicopter, that killed 19 US troops in late June in Korengal Valley, eastern Kunar province.
“It was successful,” spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara told The Associated Press. “We had over 29 separate engagements with enemy forces that resulted in over 40 enemy killed in action and many others wounded.” O’Hara also announced that a separate battle from Aug. 7-10 in southern Zabul province’s Daychopan district left 65 suspected militants dead. The military had previously reported that 16 rebels had been killed in the fighting.
News of the casualties comes after a deadly period for US forces in Afghanistan, with 13 American troops killed this month. Four soldiers were killed Sunday when a massive bomb exploded under a wooden bridge as a convoy of armored Humvees was crossing it. Three troops were wounded by shrapnel from secondary explosions as they tried to pull the four out of a burning Humvee.
Some 187 US service members have been killed in and around Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in late 2001 — including 64 during a rash of insurgent attacks in the last six months, which have left about 1,000 other people dead as well. The bloodshed has led the military to rush in an airborne infantry battalion of about 700 troops on standby in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, boosting the number of American troops in Afghanistan to about 20,000.
