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Taliban rooting for Karzai's defeat
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KABUL - When Afghanistan's 17 million eligible voters cast their votes on
Thursday for a president and provincial councils, the Taliban will be hoping
for the defeat of incumbent Hamid Karzai.
The Taliban want Karzai to lose, preferably to his main challenger, former
foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who hails from the north. The Taliban
believe this would heighten feelings in the Pashtun-dominated south that people
there are being ruled by the north. This in turn could make ordinary folk more
receptive to the Taliban.
Taliban attacks are currently focussed in the south and specifically in areas
seen as strongholds of the president, who would most likely be favored
by a high voter turnout. In the presidential poll, the
winning candidate needs to secure 51% of the votes cast to avoid a runoff.
The Taliban are actively warning voters to stay away from the polls, saying
voters will be viewed just the same as foreign forces in the country - and face
the same consequences.
The latest polls indicate that of the more than 40 hopefuls, Abdullah is best
placed to prevent Karzai from winning the majority he needs for a second
four-year term. Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, is third by a large
margin.
Abdullah, an eye surgeon, points to his Kandahari (Pashtun) ancestry on his
father's side, but he is better known for his Pansheri Tajik clan and is
perceived as trying to playing the Pashtun card to win the key Pashtun cities
of Kandahar and Kabul.
Last week, at a public meeting in Kandahar, he spoke Pashtu, but his accent and
grammar let him down badly. His base is northern Afghanistan among the Tajiks,
Hazara and to some extent the Uzbek population.
From 2006, Taliban attacks have become increasingly strategic, but this year
they showed an even greater level of maturity. Former Chinese leader Mao Zedong
laid down the rules of modern guerrilla warfare during the Chinese civil war in
the mid-20th century. "When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops,
harass; when he tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue."
The Taliban are following this advice closely. This year the United States
deployed an additional force of 4,000 troops in Helmand province, but the
Taliban refused to engage in direct combat and melted into the population. When
British and US soldiers went in search of them, they became sitting targets.
Sunday's deaths of three British soldiers in Sangin, Helmand province, brought
to 204 the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001. July
was the British army's deadliest month, with 21 soldiers killed. Other
coalition forces lost 76 soldiers in July, including 45 Americans.
The Pakistani Taliban have adopted a similar approach in the tribal areas
against the Pakistan military. In many cases, they have simply slipped across
the border to aid the insurgents in Afghanistan.
In the past two weeks, the Taliban have struck in Ghazni and Logar, the two
provinces closest to Kabul. In Logar, they almost seized the provincial
capital. The surprise attacks are clearly aimed at cowering the population into
staying in their homes.
On Saturday, a suicide car bomber struck near the front gates of the
headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Kabul, killing seven
people and wounding nearly 100 in a brazen daylight attack. According to the
Taliban, they had planned to attack the US Embassy in the same road, but
switched plans when they were unable to access it.
"The attack is ample proof that the Taliban have established an effective
network in the Kabul neighborhoods and more attacks cannot be ruled out in the
coming days," an Afghan official based in Kabul told Asia Times Online on
condition of anonymity.
The month of August generally marks an increase in Taliban operations ahead of
the cold that begins to set in from September. However, three additional
reasons are likely to make this August the most active since the Taliban fell
from power in 2001:
Pakistan's military operations in the tribal areas have led to several thousand
militants crossing into adjoining Afghan provinces.
The Islamic month of Ramadan starts next week and militants want to see as much
action as possible before they begin a routine of fasting and rest.
The Taliban want to cause as much disruption as possible before the voting on
Thursday.
This year marks the first that the Taliban have threatened to attack polling
stations directly, and it is also the first time they have had the capacity to
cause havoc in major cities beyond Kandahar, such as Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad
and Khost.
The Taliban roam freely in the market centers of Kandahar and Spin Boldak in
Kandahar province, where Afghan security forces do not have the will or the
means to challenge them.
The Taliban have distributed leaflets across southern Afghanistan: "This is to
inform respected residents that you must not participate in the elections so as
not to become a victim of our operations because we will use new tactics." All
voters were allies of the Afghan government and foreign forces and therefore
enemies of Islam, it added.
The leaflet was authenticated by Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, "We are
using new tactics targeting election centers. If anyone is harmed in and around
election centers, they will be responsible because we have informed them in
advance."
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
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