Kandahar: Unable to stop next Saturday’s Afghan presidential election, the Taliban and their allies are ramping up violence, even killing children, to create a climate of fear and discredit the poll.
For many Afghans, the renewed spike in violence is a reminder of the fear that beset voters the last time they were asked to head to the polls.
In the Mahala Najat district of Kandahar city – the former capital of the Taliban regime when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the US-led invasion in 2001 – shopkeeper Ahmad Gul sits under a tired orange awning.
He recalls how during the last election day on August 20 2009 a group of Taliban fired four rockets just metres from his shop at the provincial governor’s residence, frightening the local population and contributing to a record low voter turnout for Kandahar – just five per cent.
“No-one went out of their houses, they stayed home because they were afraid and also because they knew everything had been decided in advance and that Karzai would be re-elected,” said 30-year-old Gul.
Five years later, thanks to a significant boosting of the army and local police – and the insurgency losing steam – the area is clear of Taliban, Gul says.
But the Taliban can still strike at any moment and as in 2009 tension is mounting with the approach of the vote to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, the only man to have ruled Afghanistan since the Islamists were ousted from power.
The Taliban have taken time to clarify their position on the election. After initially talking of a boycott they hardened their tone on March 11, announcing that they had ordered their fighters to disrupt the poll by attacking activists and officials connected with it.
“It is the religious obligation of every Afghan to fulfil their duty by foiling the latest plot of the invaders that is guised in the garb of elections,” the militants said.
Since then the violence has surged, as happened in the lead-up to the 2009 ballot, when NATO forces recorded an average of 32 attacks a day in the 10 days preceding the vote and 48 in the last four days.
In Kandahar, largely calm in recent months, two suicide attacks followed the Taliban announcement, leaving several people wounded, according to officials, and on March 20 the insurgents claimed an attack in the eastern city of Jalalabad that killed 10 police officers.
But it is Kabul which has borne the brunt so far, suffering a series of spectacular, high-profile attacks targeting in particular the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which has had both its headquarters and a city branch office hit.
Just 30-33 per cent of voters cast ballots in the 2009 election, according to the UN and the Taliban are hoping to engineer a similarly low turnout this time around. (AFP)