Rockets rained on cities and military outposts across Afghanistan as the war-weary nation prepared to go to the polls in today's historic presidential elections.
The embassy district in the capital Kabul was among the targets as more than two dozen rockets were fired around the country in a 24-hour period, Major Scott Nelson, a spokesman for the US-led coalition told reporters.
Remnants of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban regime ousted by the US-led invasion in late 2001, and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group have vowed to disrupt the vote and hundreds of people have died in violence this year. The Kabul rocket, which was larger than the type normally used by insurgents, exploded above the US embassy without causing any injuries, interior minister spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said. Two children were wounded by a rocket strike in southern Jalalabad city while other attacks caused no casualties, Nelson added.
The attacks came hard on the heels of an assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai's running mate with a remote-controlled bomb on Wednesday and the wounding of two US soldiers in another bomb attack in southeast Afghanistan on Thursday.
The US-backed Karzai said, however, he believed conditions were right for a "fairly free" election today.
"I think the conditions are right for a free vote -- for a fairly free vote," he told BBC television.
"The fact that in spite of the terrorist attacks and attacks on workers for registration the Afghans registered 10.5 million people, almost 42 percent of them women, shows that they want to go to the elections."
Asked about reports of widespread intimidation of voters by the Taliban and regional war-lords, Karzai said: "I trust the Afghan people's ability to go and vote freely, and they will.
"There may be some intimidation, there may be some incidents, that happens everywhere," he said.
Officials have warned of car-bomb attacks and the possibility of armed assaults on polling stations. Police said they stopped a car packed with explosives yesterday outside the main southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. Kabul streets were unusually quiet yesterday, and several Afghans said they were afraid.
Shopkeeper Shafiullah Samiullah, 16, said his family would check the security situation before voting.
"Some people say they will not go to the polling stations because maybe something will happen," he said.
A total of 100,000 international and local troops, police and security personnel will protect voters in the country's first-ever presidential elections. Around 1 million Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan are also expected to vote.
A smooth election with an undisputed outcome -- neither of which is guaranteed -- will enable US President George W. Bush to claim a victory for his much-maligned foreign policy and predict a similar outcome for Iraq where elections are slated for January.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS