October 2009
20 posts
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UN fears for second Afghan vote after commission... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
United Nations election staff have threatened to end support for a second round of presidential elections in Afghanistan because local officials are refusing to tackle voter fraud.
The international community has been urging authorities in Kabul to close hundreds of polling stations where there were irregularities in the first round. The local Independent...
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UN staff killed as suicide bombers strike in a bid... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The faithful had just finished their morning prayers when the crack and thump of exploding grenades echoed across Kabul. It was the first indication that at a United Nations guesthouse in a smart residential district of the Afghan capital, a deadly assault was under way.
Within a few hours the three-storey hostel would be reduced to a smouldering wreck and...
Three UN staff killed in Kabul shootout →
Fierce fighting erupted in Kabul this morning as Taliban gunmen stormed a UN guesthouse close to the diplomatic district of the capital in an attack that militants warned marked a the start of a…
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Eight more US troops die in Afghanistan as America... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Tim Reid in Washington
Eight American servicemen were killed in a series of explosions today, making October the deadliest month for US troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
Officials said that several soldiers were injured in “multiple, complex” bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, just a day after 14 Americans were killed in two separate...
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Sixteen Americans dead as helicopters crash in... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Sixteen Americans died in a series of helicopter crashes and Taleban attacks across Afghanistan in one of the bloodiest days since the 2001 invasion.
Ten people were killed and at least 26 wounded when a Chinook helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan yesterday during a pre-dawn battle with insurgents.
In Helmand province, in the south of the country, four...
Police fire on anti-US protesters in Kabul →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Afghan police opened fire on protesters in Kabul yesterday during a second day of anti-American demonstrations outside parliament.
Medical staff said that three people were admitted to hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Officers also used a water cannon to try to disperse the crowd — led by students from Kabul University.
The protesters were demanding...
Fourteen Americans dead as helicopters crash in... →
Fourteen Americans have died in Afghanistan in a bloody night for the US, when one helicopter came down under heavy fire and two more collided in mid air.
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Police open fire as protesters storm parliament in... →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Police opened fire as hundreds of protesters tried to storm Afghanistan’s parliament yesterday.
Religious students chanting “Death to America” burnt an effigy of President Obama less than a week after he warned that Kabul might no longer be a credible partner in the fight against the Taleban.
Organisers insisted it was a spontaneous demonstration to...
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Allied exit strategy at risk as Afghan police run... →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
It is the $120-a-month job that is crucial to any Allied exit strategy from Afghanistan but at the moment a career in the police force is only for the desperate.
American efforts to expand Afghanistan’s security forces are faltering, leaving the largest training centre in the country operating at only 25 per cent capacity.
Recruitment has been low in recent...
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Run-off 'could be an exercise in making fraud... →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The collapsible cardboard polling booths, picnic chairs and indelible ink in Afghanistan’s emergency election kits may make a second round possible but they will not necessarily make it fair.
All the materials for a run-off, including millions of new ballot papers, plastic seals and tamper-proof bags, began leaving Kabul this morning, packed into old Russian...
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Changes needed to avoid repeat of Afghan vote... →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Tom Coghlan
The man who stands between Hamid Karzai and a second term in office as President said yesterday he was ready for the run-off vote but demanded major changes to avoid the “widespread, massive fraud” that bedevilled the first round of voting.
Addressing the media in the garden of his Kabul home, Abdullah Abdullah — former eye surgeon, Mujahidin...
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Winter election looms as Hamid Karzai bows to... →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
President Karzai caved in to intense international pressure yesterday and agreed to compete in a second round run-off to decide Afghanistan’s fraud-ridden presidential elections.
Mr Karzai, after days spent threatening to boycott the findings of an inquiry into vote rigging, finally accepted a decision by the country’s two electoral bodies to slash his tally...
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Comment: West allows Karzai to save face →
The Times
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
It is a mark of how often the law is ignored in Afghanistan that President Hamid Karzai earned gushing international plaudits this afternoon for simply following the rules he threatened to boycott.
In conceding to a second round of voting he was merely admitting what the rest of the world has know for weeks – that more than a million votes in the August 20...
Hamid Karzai agrees to take part in Afghan... →
President Karzai today bowed to international pressure and agreed to take part in a run-off vote in the Afghan presidential election.
Karzai orders security chiefs to prepare for... →
Afghanistan’s security chiefs have been ordered to make emergency preparations for a second round of voting, in the clearest sign yet that Hamid Karzai will admit he didn’t win August’s fraud-ridden…
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Hamid Karzai faces another ballot after 1m votes... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul, Giles Whittell and James Bone
President Karzai was under intense pressure last night to accept a deal with his main opponent or a second round of voting in Afghanistan’s disputed election after UN-backed observers declared more than a million first-round votes invalid.
Sources at the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) confirmed that its two-month inquiry had...
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American support for Karzai dwindles over his... →
The Times Giles Whittell in Washington and Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The White House has issued its strongest warning yet that President Karzai cannot count on continued US support if he fails to accept that Afghanistan’s fraudulent election has critically undermined his authority.
President Obama was said yesterday to be more concerned at “whether there’s an Afghan partner” worth defending than...
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Armed riots threatened as Karzai scorns election... →
Sunday Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
HAMID KARZAI, the Afghan president, has threatened to ignore the findings of an investigation into widespread fraud that made it appear he had won an election victory over his rival in August.
The country’s Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) had been due to announce yesterday that Karzai’s share of the ballots was being cut from 54.6% to about 47% as a...
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President Karzai’s share of Afghan vote is slashed... →
The Times Jerome Starkey in Kabul
President Karzai could be forced to form a coalition government in Afghanistan or face a second round of voting after electoral fraud officials slashed his share of the vote to below 50 per cent.
After more than eight weeks investigating 2,584 allegations of election fraud, misconduct and vote-rigging, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is...
President Karzai’s share of Afghan vote is slashed... →
President Karzai could be forced to form a coalition government in Afghanistan or face a second round of voting after electoral fraud officials slashed his share of the vote to below 50 per cent.