Word: talibanize
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...country's bumpy mud tracks. In a period of less than two months, the onetime warrior will have been to more than half of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, throwing rallies under the massive, multicolored tents usually reserved for weddings. The dangers, of course, are real. Last week, the Taliban vowed to disrupt Afghanistan's election in a strongly worded warning posted on its website, urging Afghans to boycott the poll and "join the trenches of Jihad." Violence has already claimed the lives of several workers campaigning for a field of 36 candidates. (Read a story about U.S. support for President...
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...
...round victory (if no candidate gets 50% of the vote, elections will go to a runoff a month later). The possible closing of some 10% of the polls has raised fears that the elections will not be perceived as fair, particularly among Pashtuns, who make up the majority of Taliban insurgents. The areas where Abdullah is most popular tend to be in the more stable north, where a larger turnout is expected...
Authorities and human-rights groups now suspect that the attackers belonged to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian militant group from the nearby town of Jhang. A senior member, Qari Saifullah, served as Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud's right-hand man and trained scores of suicide bombers. The group's even more vicious offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is considered al-Qaeda's front in Pakistan. The enduring and undisturbed presence of Sipah-e-Sahaba and other militant groups in central and southern Punjab has led many analysts to predict that the militants will open up their next front here. Already...
...against a Conservative opposition bolstered by public discontent over the Iraq war, has indicated that his government will search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. At a speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels on July 27, Foreign Secretary David Milliband urged military commanders to open negotiations with midlevel Taliban leaders in order "to separate hard-line ideologues who are essentially irreconcilable and violent from those who can be drawn into a domestic political process." (Watch a TIME video with Gordon Brown...