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.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS