Kabul, October 29: Afghanistan played down security fears for next week’s run-off election Thursday after a deadly pre-dawn Taliban attack on a UN guesthouse designed to strike fear into the heart of voters and organisers.
As the international community insisted Wednesday’s attack in Kabul, which killed at least five foreign UN staff, would not disrupt the November 7 poll, Afghan officials tried to assuage the fears of foreign staff.
Thousands of foreigners work in Afghanistan, providing aid and expertise.
The United Nations said its head of mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, had spoken to the Afghan interior minister, who had given assurances that security would be enhanced in the wake of the attack.
The UN was also holding a review of all of its security measures, with spokesman Dan McNorton acknowledging that “it’s not business as usual.”
The attack on the Bekhtar guesthouse in downtown Kabul, carried out by three Taliban fighters who blew themselves up after a two-hour gunbattle, followed a threat by the Islamists to violently disrupt next week’s election. Related article: Attacks raise heat on Obama
The poll will pit Afghan President Hamid Karzai against his former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Attacks by the Taliban, the Islamist militia toppled by US-led forces in late 2001, were a major deterrent to voters in the first round of the election on August 20 when turnout in some provinces was as low as five percent.
Almost 200 violent incidents around the first vote were attributed to the Taliban, including amputations of fingers marked with purple ink as proof of voting, and rocket and grenade attacks on polling stations.
A Taliban spokesman said that Wednesday’s assault in Kabul signalled the start of a new bloody campaign to wreck the elections.
The Afghan defence ministry, however, played down the prospects of widespread Taliban attacks this time round, and said authorities had learned lessons from the first round of voting.
“The enemy had prepared for months with foreign support, allocating loads of funds to disrupt the elections in a well-planned effort,” defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
“This time round, they haven’t had the same amount of time to prepare a campaign of attacks and the Pakistani Taliban who helped the Afghan Taliban last time to disturb the election are busy fighting in Pakistan,” he added in reference to a major anti-militant offensive in South Waziristan.
A White House spokesman said that the Taliban’s attempts to wreck the poll would not succeed. Related article: Taliban vows further mayhem
“In Kabul obviously there is an attempt by some to disrupt the will of the Afghan people in choosing their next government that this administration believes will not succeed,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting neighbouring Pakistan, struck a similar note when condemning the “cowardly” attack.
“We remain firm in our commitment to Afghanistan and the Afghan people and to working with the Afghans to conclude their presidential election process,” she said in a statement.
In a press conference at UN headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also insisted the organisation’s focus would not be deflected.
“We will never be deterred by these terrorist attacks,” he told a press conference.
He offered no detail about what could be done to secure hundreds of UN staff in the country, however, many living in similar compounds to that stormed by the Taliban suicide squad, and he admitted that other casualties were possible.
“It is quite an unfortunate fact of life that we cannot ensure 100 percent the security because of these suicidal terrorist attacks,” Ban said.
Karzai was forced into a run-off after falling fractionally short of an outright majority in a first round which was riddled with fraud.
Nearly a quarter of all the votes were eventually discounted after being deemed fraudulent and Abdullah has demanded the head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), who was appointed by Karzai, be sacked.
The IEC was due to hold a press conference later Thursday when it was expected to outline measures to avoid a repeat of the widespread fraud and address security fears.
—Agencies