Word: kandahar
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...night letters" left on their doorsteps and pasted on walls ordering them to boycott Afghanistan's second-ever presidential election, on Aug 20. Those letters have now turned into death threats. The latest, seen by TIME, is purportedly authored by Mullah Ghulam Haider, the alleged Taliban commander in Kandahar city. It says those who vote will be considered "enemies of Islam" and could "become a victim" of "new tactics." It does not offer details. Another letter promises to cut off the fingers of people with blue ink stains, a sign they have voted. Last week, hundreds of these letters were...
...mail, "We don't feel it is important to have contact with the slavish and corrupt administration, and we don't need them to contact us." He pledged that the election "will be sabotaged in everywhere possible." On Aug. 16, three rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) were fired into Kandahar city, killing a young girl and injuring four children. The following evenings, small-arms fire could be heard on the outskirts of the city. On Aug. 18, a minibus was bombed in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, killing nine civilians...
Some people, however, play down the warnings from Haider and the militants. Abdul Qader Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commsion in Kandahar province, says people "are tired of the Taliban's threats and don't take them as seriously" after repeated promises of suicide attacks never came. He notes that the militants' stated intent is to avoid civilian casualties in order to cast in sharper relief U.S. culpability for the deaths of Afghans in errant air strikes and night raids. (Insurgents have been responsible for 60% of civilian deaths so far this year, according to U.N. figures...
While Abdullah's father is a Pashtun from Kandahar, the doctor is more often associated with Panshir because of his close relationship with the late Panshiri mujahedin commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who not only helped defeat the Soviets but was also the Taliban's most effective enemy. Massoud was assassinated, some say as a gift from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, by suicide bombers posing as TV journalists on Sept. 9, 2001. Massoud has been the cornerstone of Abdullah's campaign: his image shadows that of Abdullah's on many campaign posters, and before Abdullah spoke at last week...
...among NATO troops, proves that they are actually more violent and more dangerous. But one opportunity that comes out of this is that they are also far more hated by the local population. If you read the reports coming out of Swat, out of Southern Afghanistan, out of Kandahar, Helmand, the tribal areas in Pakistan, increasingly the people of the border areas refer to them as criminals and gangsters. They really are more similar to Tony Soprano than the Che Guevara image we have. They are hardly behaving like pious Muslims...