KABUL, 20 August 2005 — A US Marine and an Afghan soldier were killed and four other Afghan troops wounded while fighting militants in an area where an American helicopter was shot down in June, the US military said yesterday. A statement said the soldiers died on Thursday during an operation northwest of Asadabad, capital of the violence-hit eastern province of Kunar.
“The unit was conducting operations to disrupt enemy forces working in the area in order to clear the way for successful elections,” said Lt. Col. James E. Donnellan of the US Army. Afghanistan’s first parliamentary and district elections since the fall of the hard-line Taleban regime at the hands of US-led forces in 2001 are due to take place on Sept. 18.
Two of the wounded Afghan soldiers had returned to duty and the other two had been transferred to medical facilities in Kabul and the US military base at Bagram for treatment, the statement said.
The casualties occurred on the same day that two US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the southern province of Kandahar. A total of 70 US troops have now been killed in operations linked to Afghanistan in 2005, making it the deadliest year yet for US forces in the war-torn country.
Sixteen US service members died in late June when Taleban militants downed a Chinook helicopter that was on a mission to rescue a team of elite US Navy SEALs near Asadabad. Three of the four commandos were killed by militants while one was rescued by an Afghan shepherd.
Earlier yesterday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged his countrymen to vote for candidates who were honest and would uphold the law in next month’s elections. Speaking to thousands of citizens and officials at a ceremony marking independence from Britain in 1919, Karzai said: “I want my countrymen and women to vote for those who are good Muslims and lovers of Afghanistan.”
“The people should vote for those who are the most honest and want the rule of law,” he said. He also called on candidates to “not forget their responsibility before God and history”. New US ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann said on Thursday that the Taleban had “no chance” of derailing the polls but admitted that violence had risen in Afghanistan.
Karzai also said in the speech “terrorists” were trying to block his country’s progress but they would fail. “Candidates should not forget that they have a great responsibility,” Karzai told thousands of people in Kabul’s sports stadium. “They should give preference to Afghanistan’s national unity, rather than tribe, faction and party,” he said. Karzai was elected president for a five-year term last October.
Parliamentary and provincial elections, which were due to be held at the same time as the presidential vote, were postponed until Sept. 18 when nearly 6,000 candidates will compete for 249 seats in parliament as well as 34 provincial councils. Afghanistan should then have a democratically elected Parliament and president for the first time in its history - a step the world hopes will foster stability and growth in the ethnically diverse country after nearly 30 years of conflict.
Rivalry between leaders of groups such as the Pushtun, Afghanistan’s largest community and its traditional rulers, and minorities such as Tajiks, has at times defined Afghan politics. Karzai urged people to be vigilant in the run-up to the vote, which is being held on a non-party basis, and promised that his government would remain neutral and not meddle in the process.
Karzai said “terrorists” would fail in their efforts to block Afghanistan’s reconstruction and turn in into a “slave”. Karzai also said illegal drugs were a threat to the country’s youth and its economy.
