August 2009
36 posts
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Hamid Karzai in fiery row with US official →
Sunday Times
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Jon Swain
EXPLOSIVE details have emerged of an encounter between Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At one point the Afghan president whipped off his distinctive karakul sheepskin hat and slammed it onto the table where the two men were having dinner, a day after the disputed August...
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WatchNajibullah is going blind because of shrapnel in his eye from a Taliban rocket. The explosion killed his little brother, Hamidullah, on August 20, as the two of them cycled to a polling station in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan.
It was 7.24am. They would have been the first people to vote.
French medics at the Nato hospital in Kabul operated today to try and remove the shrapnel, but...
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WatchNajibullah’s little brother, Hamidullah, was killed by Taliban rocket on August 20, as they balanced on a bicycle, on their way to vote in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand.
Photographer Jeremy Kelly and I were less than 200ft away when the rocket hit. We thought Najibullah was unscathed. He stood screaming next to his brother’s body as medics heaved it into an ambulance. But when...
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Afghan vote fraud revealed →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
THE international community is backtracking on its praise of Afghanistan’s elections last week, as evidence and anecdotes of spectacular fraud threaten to undermine it.
Preliminary results yesterday gave incumbent Hamid Karzai a 2 per cent lead on his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah. But neither man is close to the 51 per cent needed to win outright...
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Afghan election heads for deadlock →
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta and Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Hamid Karzai and his chief challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, were running neck and neck in the Afghan election according to figures for the preliminary count released yesterday.
But the partial count was overshadowed by a series of car bomb blasts in the southern city of Kandahar which killed at least 41 people and wounded 64. The five...
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WatchPhotographer Jeremy Kelly’s excellent record of voting and violence in Lashkar Gah on Afghanistan’s landmark second elections.
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Taliban attacks leave poll soaked in blood →
Sunday Times
By Jon Swain in Kabul and Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
Photographs by Jeremy Kelly
ONE searing image of many to come out of Afghanistan on its historic presidential election day last Thursday sticks in the mind: that of a tousle-haired youth called Hamidullah balancing on the back of his brother’s bicycle on the way to a polling station.
Only 15, he had registered to vote in...
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Bloodbath fear after Afghan poll rivals both claim... →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai and his leading opponent both claimed to have won Afghanistan’s election outright yesterday, fuelling fears of post-election riots.
Most of the votes have been counted but official results are not due until 3 September. Mr Karzai’s campaign manager Haji Deen Mohammad said: “Initial results show that the...
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'Metres away, I see a rocket kill one boy, leave... →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
THE terrible human cost of war was hammered home to me at exactly 7.24 yesterday morning as I watched a Taleban rocket claim an innocent boy’s life.
Photographer Jeremy Kelly and I were at a polling station in Lashkar Gah to cover Afghanistan’s presidential elections, from Helmand province. People die every day in the insurgency here,...
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A pool of blood... a queue of voters... a glimmer... →
The Sun
By JEROME STARKEY in Lashkar Gah and Tom Newton Dunn Defence Editor
THE polls were open for less than 20 minutes when the first Taliban rocket smashed into Lashkar Gah yesterday. An instant later a teenage boy lay dying in the road - his shoe and hat nearby. He perished a few yards from the edge of a football field where residents of the Helmand provincial capital were arriving to cast...
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In Afghanistan the bombs went off – but still... →
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta in Nad-e Ali and Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
Millions of Afghans defied Taliban threats to cast their ballot in the country’s second-ever presidential election yesterday but the turnout looked to be well down on the poll that brought Hamid Karzai to power, hinting at turbulence when initial results are announced in a few days time.
The Associated Press...
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Afghans defy the Taliban rockets to vote for... →
Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
Hundreds of people defied Taliban threats and rocket attacks to vote in Afghanistan’s most dangerous province toda
One boy was killed and two more were seriously injured when a volley of Taliban rockets screamed into Lashkar Gah just 20 minutes after polling opened.
One landed 10 metres outside a football field where the local governor...
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Half of poll stations are shut by fear of Taliban →
Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
FEWER than half of Helmand’s polling stations opened this morning as Afghanistan began a landmark ballot to pick its next president.
Security fears left 115 sites closed across huge swathes of the province still under Taliban control.
Insurgents have threatened to attack polling stations with suicide bombers and chop off the fingers of...
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Will Afghans defy Taliban and flock to the ballot... →
The Independent
By Kim Sengupta and Jerome Starkey in Helmand
Afghanistan goes to the polls today amid fears that the outcome will be distorted by low turnout caused by violence and intimidation. After eight years of war, the landmark presidential poll could redefine Britain’s military mission there, but the Taliban have already shown that they are still in control of huge swathes of...
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Afghans go to polls … if the Taleban let... →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
AS AFGHANISTAN votes today in a landmark presidential election that will redefine Britain’s mission in the country, the Taleban have shown their shadow government is still in control of huge swathes of countryside.
Insurgents blocked the roads in and out of Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, yesterday to try to stop people voting. Despite a...
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Vote and we’ll chop off your fingers and make you... →
The Sun
EXCLUSIVE
By JEROME STARKEY and OLIVER HARVEY in Lashkar Gah and TOM NEWTON DUNN, Defence Editor
RUTHLESS Taliban thugs have vowed to make Afghans eat their own fingers if they vote in today’s presidential election.
The foreign fighters warned Helmand locals they would chop off fingers marked with the purple ballot ink and force them down their throats.
The vile threats emerged as...
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The Taliban won't stop us from voting, say defiant... →
Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
Hordes of Taliban gunman are fighting just outside the city, but people in Lashkar Gah are defying insurgent threats by promising to vote in tomorrow’s election.
The Taliban have vowed to attack the polling stations and warned that anyone who votes will have their ink-stained fingers cut off.
But the merchants and students in...
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Taleban car bomb kills ten two days before... →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Lashkar Gah
A MASSIVE car bomb on one of Kabul’s busiest roads killed a foreign soldier and nine civilians yesterday, after rockets rained down on the president’s palace less than 48 hours before landmark elections.
The Taleban have ramped up attacks on the capital this month as part of a countrywide campaign to undermine the polls, which are the...
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On election eve, weary Afghans make do as Taliban... →
Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The Taliban cast their long shadow over preparations for the Afghan election when a suicide bomber killed at least seven people in Kabul today.
The car bomb, whose victims included three European soldiers and two local Afghan staff, on a main road out of Kabul to the eastern city of Jalalabad, was the latest show of strength by militants. More than...
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Taleban paid to call off election attacks →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
TALEBAN commanders have been bribed with cash from the international community to hold off violent attacks in the run up to Thursday’s Afghan elections, The Scotsman has learned.
Intelligence sources say the money was given to fighters in the hope it would form the basis of permanent peace talks with the Taleban. The news came as the head of the...
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Now brutal warlord holds key to Afghan poll →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Kim Sengupta in Nad-e Ali, Helmand
As campaigning ended yesterday for elections that could determine both the future of Afghanistan and the role of British troops there, the outcome threatened to hang on the impact of renewed Taliban intimidation and the return to the fray of a former warlord, notorious for savage acts of brutality and violence.
The...
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Truces agreed with Taliban for election day →
The Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The Afghan government has agreed local 24-hour ceasefires with the Taliban for Thursday’s presidential elections.
It is hoped the truces will let people vote and could even form the basis of permanent peace talks with the Taliban, the man in charge of reconciliation has told the Standard.
But ambushes and explosions are likely to...
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Afghan women to be denied vote →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
MILLIONS of Afghan women will be denied their chance to vote in landmark presidential elections this week, because there aren’t enough female officials to staff the women-only polling station.
A desperate shortage of female staff is threatening to undermine the legitimacy of the elections, which are the pinnacle of western-led efforts to build a...
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Afghan women to miss out on vote in landmark... →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Kim Sengupta
Millions of Afghan women will be denied their chance to vote in presidential elections this week because there aren’t enough female officials to staff the women-only polling stations. (Read full story)
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Karzai's secret U-turn on Afghan rape law →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey
A law that lets Afghan husbands starve their wives if they refuse to obey their sexual demands has been quietly slipped into effect, despite promises from Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, that it would be reviewed and rigorously debated in the country’s parliament.
Women’s activists have accused the President of abandoning human rights...
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Fraud claims taint Afghan election →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kandahar
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai is facing claims that he is trying to buy himself a second term in Afghanistan’s fiercely contested national elections next week.
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Karzai 'spending his way to victory in... →
The Evening Standard
By Jerome Starkey in Kandahar
Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai is facing claims he is trying to “buy” himself a second term in the country’s elections next week.
Allegations of fraud and predictions of widespread violence have marred the race, which many fear could wreck Western-led peace efforts.
Figures seen by the Standard show Mr Karzai...
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Secret deal to keep Karzai in power →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
With less than two weeks to go until national elections, the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is trying to cut a secret deal with one of his rivals to knock out his leading contender and ensure a decisive victory to avoid the chaos that a tight result might unleash.
Afghanistan’s second democratic polls threaten to split the country along...
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Taliban rockets shatter fragile peace in Kabul →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
A salvo of Taliban rockets shook Kabul’s diplomatic district yesterday as insurgents ramped up attacks countrywide in a bid to derail presidential elections, less than three weeks away.
At least nine rockets rained down on the capital. Two of them landed close to the British and American embassies. Police said a child was hurt in a residential...
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Taleban make 'invisible' bombs →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
EXPERT bomb-makers in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province, are pioneering new types of “invisible” devices, made with carbon rods and glass, instead of metal pressure plates and nails.
Britain’s most senior bomb-disposal officer in Afghanistan has warned that insurgents have started manufacturing “low-metal”...
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Roadside bombs made invisible →
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul The Sunday Times
Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are using carbon rods and glass, instead of metal pressure plates and nails, to make explosive devices invisible to theBritish Army’s metal detectors, writes Jerome Starkey.
Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Duncan, the most senior British bomb disposal officer in Afghanistan, said the insurgents were also placing “low metal”...