Afghans vote amid rocket attacks & violence:
KABUL (Agencies) – Afghans braved deadly Taliban attacks to vote for a new parliament Saturday, as officials said that the violence could keep the turnout at about 40 per cent, slightly up on last year’s presidential poll, but widely reported voting fraud threatened to undermine the result and the government’s credibility.
Complaints of irregularities emerged, following UN and US warnings that security and fraud were concerns in the second parliamentary vote since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban.
A total of 14 people, including 11 civilians, were killed in the election-related violence, Interior Minister Bismullah Mohammadi said.
Three police officers were also killed, he told a news conference.
He said 13 police officers and 45 civilians were also injured.
Insurgents fired rockets in several cities and set off bombs at a polling station and beside a convoy carrying the governor of Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in the south, but officials said several more attacks were foiled.
The Taliban said on their website after polls closed they had conducted more than 150 attacks. While fewer than the 272 blamed on the fighters at last year’s presidential poll, the violence was more widespread and reached once stable areas.
Rocket strikes in northern Takhar province and eastern Kunar killed three and wounded nine, officials said. Kunar authorities called in a Nato airstrike that killed nine Taliban fighters who attacked a poll site, police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said.
In northern Kunduz province, government forces killed eight Taliban after the insurgents fired rockets at Kunduz airport, where Nato forces have a base, government officials said. Sixteen civilians were wounded by rockets elsewhere in Kunduz.
