KABUL,
September 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Afghanistan is
still far away from realizing security ahead of its first presidential
elections in decades, slated for October 9, with continued attacks
against senior officials and international forces, analysts say.
“One
of the most daunting tasks facing the October 9th presidential
elections is ensuring the safety of polling places, voters, and marked
ballots in a deteriorating security environment,” Agence France
Presse (AFP) quoted a report of the Afghanistan Research and
Evaluation Unit as saying Friday, September 17.
The
situation has been worsening in the country, killing scores of Afghan
and US troops, aid workers, government officials and elections workers
and making atmosphere non-conducive to providing these guarantees.
The
Taliban remnants had targeted Thursday, September 16, a helicopter
carrying Afghan President Hamid Karzai with a rocket in the Afghan
town of Gardez as he was planning to give his first elections campaign
outside the capital Kabul.
“A
rocket was fired at President Karzai as his helicopter was landing,”
the Reuters news agency quoted US military spokesman Major Mark McCann
as saying.
“It
missed and landed about 300 meters (yards) from a school in the
vicinity of the landing area,” he added.
Weak
Guarantees
Optimism
is further fading away with the control of the Taliban movement over
the southern and eastern Afghan provinces.
The
Taliban remnants are waging guerrilla attacks in the south and
southeast of the country, despite bids of the 18,500 US-led troops to
stamp them out.
“What
it comes down to ultimately is that there is a very weak guarantee of
security at any of the polling sites, because it comes down to the
police who have been partially trained or untrained,” Vikram Parekh,
an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
The
United States decided to deploy a few hundreds of American soldiers in
Afghanistan to help ensure security before the approaching
presidential elections.
At
present, there are already approximately 16,500 international US-led
troops in addition to 7,500 NATO-led peacekeepers who are patrolling
Kabul and some of the quieter northern provinces.
Not
Adequate
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US forces during an operation in Afghanistan
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However,
observers believe that the size of the international forces in the
country is not adequate for maintaining security ahead of the
elections.
“Some
of the activities of the coalition in the south and the southeast have
limited their ability to communicate and organize, so although we'll
see a rise in violence I don't think it will be too dramatic,”
Andrew Wilder, of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit said.
Further
bruising to the US forces is the rising anti-American sentiments among
ordinary Afghans -- further to add pressures on American and foreign
soldiers in the predominantly-Muslim country.
US
forces in Afghanistan have been facing accusations of using excessive
force in the Afghan residential areas and abusing the Afghan
civilians.
In
March, a 59-page
report by Human Rights Watch said US forces have used
“unprovoked deadly force” during their sweeps to detain civilians
in “uncontested residential areas”.
US
forces are also accused of abusing Afghan detainees, with the
international watchdog saying the abuse was “systematic
” and not limited to few cases.
Amnesty
International said on Wednesday, May 26, that the US-led “war on
terror” has led to the worst
human rights abuses in 50 years.
