Afghan voters face threats

The attack came just before midnight as a force of some 400 Taliban fighters descended on the village of Khake Afghan, where Malik Ali Mohammad had just been named the new district chief. By dawn, Mr. Mohammad had saved his village, but lost two sons who had been fighting beside him.

The attack was revenge for his role in the killing of a top Taliban commander, Mullah Roozi Khan, earlier this month. But with the first-ever presidential elections being held on Oct. 9, Mohammad says that he has little time for mourning. He will continue to fight the Taliban "until the last drop of blood."

"I have lost two of my sons, they were my soldiers," says Mohammad, wiping tears from his eyes with the end of his turban. His mood shifts from sadness to fierce anger. "I have two more sons and my own life as well, and I will not leave that district even if they kill me and my sons."

With elections just days away, an increase of violence is casting doubt on whether voters will feel safe enough to cast votes freely, whether those votes will be counted fairly, and indeed, whether voters will show up at all. The result of a deeply flawed election could undermine the faith of Afghans in the concept of democracy itself.

Voter intimidation is likely to be felt most here, in the nation's Pashtun south and east. In rural areas, the violence has many Afghans and foreign aid workers questioning whether elections should be postponed until security improves. In the cities, the problem is different. Militia commanders who refuse to disarm are putting pressure on citizens to vote for their favored candidate, or to stay home.

Holding an election in Afghanistan was never going to be easy, of course, and the lack of voting experience has opened up the process to substantial flaws. Election officials admit a number of other problems, including registration fraud, tardy voter-education programs, and a lack of observers. US officials tout the fact that 10.5 million Afghans registered to vote, but UN election officials say that those numbers may be exaggerated. In the provinces of Khost, Nooristan, Paktia, and Paktika, voter-registration rates exceeded eligible voters by 40 percent.

But security tops the list of troubles.

"If we don't have disarmament in Afghanistan, we will get the same faces in parliament, and if they get into parliament, we should all pack our bags and give up," says Andrew Wilder, head of the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent think tank in Kabul. "I'm really in favor of elections, but this is the last important opportunity to get things right."

Such a dark assessment, echoed by a number of recent reports on deteriorating security, is a stark contrast with the bright picture presented to Congress last week by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Mr. Armitage told congressmen that the Afghan elections would be a "success," although he expected the Taliban to attempt to disrupt the process. To that end, the US military now has ramped up its presence to 18,000 troops able to provide quick-reaction forces to respond to violence on polling day.

On the ground, US military spokesmen admit there has been an increase in Taliban attacks.

• In the past 12 months, more than 1,000 people have been killed in attacks linked to the Taliban. More than 25 of these have been aid workers.

• In Khost on Sept. 29, a motorcyclist exploded a bomb near the governor's house, killing himself and injuring another. A similar bicycle bomb attack occurred near a police station in Kandahar last Thursday, killing only the cyclist.

• In Zabul Province bordering Pakistan, Taliban guerrillas killed at least 12 Afghan soldiers Thursday at Sori district headquarters.

Even President Karzai himself nearly became a victim of Taliban violence. In early September, a US military helicopter carrying Karzai was fired upon by a Taliban rocket near the southern city of Gardez, where Karzai had planned to attend an election rally. Karzai's security detail - a mix of US forces and private security contractors - ordered the helicopter back to Kabul.

While Taliban attacks tend to draw more media attention, a number of recent independent reports suggest that armed militia commanders present an even greater threat, and affect larger numbers of people.

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