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KLMNO THE WORLD For Afghans, a further disconnect


1.5 million effectively disenfranchised by closing of poll stations


BY DAVID NAKAMURA


kabul – The decision by an independent commission to shutter more than 1,000 polling centers for Afghanistan’s parlia- mentary elections Saturday has been touted as a way to reduce ballot fraud in unstable regions and produce transparent results that will restore the public’s faith in the democratic process. But among the estimated 1.5


million Afghans who have been effectively disenfranchised, it may have a very different effect. Residents and candidates in these regions, mostly remote vil- lages in dangerous southern and eastern provinces, said they wor- ry that the move will deepen ethnic rivalries by creating elec- toral imbalances and accelerate a growing disengagement fromthe Afghan central government that has fed the Taliban’s resurgence. “In most of these places, the


communities already have been somehow disconnected. People are living under very difficult circumstances,” saidAhmadNad- er Nadery, chairman of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan. “Thiswill give them more of a feeling they are left at the mercy of the Taliban and no major initiative is being taken to bring them back into the fold or provide themsecurity.” That is precisely the scenario


that the Independent Election Commission hoped to avoid when it announced this summer that it would close 1,019 of the country’s 6,835 polling centers. After last year’s fraud-plagued presidential election, in which Hamid Karzai was returned to office amid allegations of ballot stuffing and forged voter regis- tration cards, commission offi- cials and international groups hoped that the move would pre- vent abuses at insecure, poorly monitored polling stations. In 2009, the commission had planned to shut only a few hun- dred stations, but the election day chaos led hundreds more to be left out of the final vote tallies. This year, the affected voters,


who represent about 12 percent of the country’s estimated 13 million voters, are clustered largely in Afghanistan’s east and south.Many people inthese areas are, like the Taliban, ethnic Pash- tuns, a population that has felt underrepresented in government since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Though Karzai is a Pashtun,


much of his cabinet is composed of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks andHaz- aras. The inability of large seg- ments of the Pashtun population to participate in the elections has led some to fear that they will be even further marginalized in the next parliament. For example, in Ghazni, a di-


verse province of 1.3million peo- ple, officialshave closed107 of the 379 polling centers, said Said Ismail Jahangir, spokesman for the governor, Mohammad Musa Akbar Zaba. Risal Di Aji A’ha, a Pashtun


Civilians killed in joint U.S.-Iraqi raid Al-Qaeda suspects


among dead, American military officials say


BY JANINE ZACHARIA


baghdad — At least six Iraqis were killed during a joint Iraqi- American counterterrorismoper- ation on the outskirts of Fallujah on Wednesday, in the deadliest incident involving U.S. troops since the United States declared anendto its combat operations in Iraq onAug. 31. Iraqi officials said eight civil-


ians were killed, while the U.S. militarysaidfour suspectedmem- bers of al-Qaeda in Iraq and two civilians died in a firefight that erupted as forces tried to capture a presumed member of the mili- tant group who allegedly was re- sponsibleforattacks intheregion. The U.S. troops were sent as


FAYAZ KABLI/REUTERS Banners for candidates in Saturday’s parliamentary elections line a busy street in Kabul.


Fewer polling places Afghanistan’s election commission is opening 500 fewer polling centers for Saturday’s parliamentary elections than it did last year. Te commission has said the decision is designed to prevent fraud in insecure areas.


Percentage change in the number of polling centers from the 2009 presidential election


-20% -10 0+10 +20


Mazar-e Sharif


Kunduz 0 Herat GHAZNI PAKTIKA Kandahar Kabul Gardez MILES 100


the people last time.” At a news conferenceWednes-


day, Ahmad Zia Rafat, a commis- sioner with the Electoral Com- plaints Commission, acknowl- edged that the independent body has “received some complaints from some supporters of certain candidates who are being de- prived of casting a vote.” The decision to close a polling


A history of fraud


During last year’s election, Paktika and Ghazni were the provinces with the


greatest number of polling centers whose results were thrown out.


Pashtun areas


SOURCES: Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, Democracy International


Most of the people living in Afghanistan’s south and east are ethnic Pashtuns, and there


is concern that the lack of voting centers in these areas will leave them under-represented.


THE WASHINGTON POST


who lives in the Ajristan district of Ghazni, complained that most of the shuttered centers are in Pashtun areas. “People who know the impor-


tance of the elections are very concerned about ithaving anega- tive long-termimpact,” he said. Daoud Sultanzoy, a legislator


running for reelection from Ghazni, said that not only do most of the polling stations in the Hazara and Tajik villages remain open but reports of falsified voter registration cards could allow thousands of additional votes to be cast at those stations. “This is not the fault of the


Hazaras, and it’s not the fault of the Pashtuns,” said Sultanzoy, who is a Pashtun. “It’s the fault of the government and internation- al community that allowed Ghaz-


ni to get where it is. We knew a few years ago where Ghazni was headed, and we raised this ques- tion with everybody. The govern- ment has not reacted in time to fill that void.” Jahangir dismissed Sultan-


zoy’s concerns, suggesting that voters in the areas where polls are being shut did not participate in large numbers in either the presidential election last year or the parliamentary elections five years ago. Opening the polls in those areaswould have pointless- ly taken away security forces and poll workers who are needed elsewhere. “The ethnic makeup is not the


main question,” Jahangir said. “We have closed down some sites in areas which were safe, but the reason is due to the disinterest of


station in Sarkand village in the eastern province of Nangahar shockedMalikNazirGul, anelder who joined other residents in petitioning the provincial office to reconsider. They pledged to provide their own security at the polls if the government was un- able to do so, he said. Instead, the provincial office


instructed the 3,000 Sarkand households to cast their ballots in Kaskoot. That village would take more thananhour to reachby car over recently flooded roads that are littered with improvised ex- plosive devices planted by insur- gents, Gul said. “I think that the security com-


mander of the province thought it was better to close down sta- tions to make his job easier,” he said. “Our worry is that the dis- trict will sort of be deleted [from representation], and people are very angry and sad about it.” Abdul Qayom, mayor of the


Khiva district, which includes Sarkand, said that election offi- cials informed him of the clo- sures during a recent meeting in Jalalabad, the largest city inNan- gahar. “The reason was that these are


far-flung areas and security is not very good there,” Qayom said, adding it was “really hard [for security forces] to approach that area. The roads are not paved.” Gul glumly offered a potential


remedy. “We would have no choice but


to join hands with the Pakistanis and become part of Pakistan,” he said. “If they accept us.” nakamurad@washpost.com


MOHANNED FAISAL/REUTERS


Special correspondentMasood Azraq contributed to this report.


DIGEST AFGHANISTAN


Rally against Koran burning turns violent A demonstration in Kabul over nixed plans by a Florida pastor to


burn copies of the Koran erupted into violenceWednesday morning as police officers and protesters exchanged gunfire, Afghan officials said. At least 37 police officers and eight other Afghans were wounded as


police were assaulted with rocks and bullets when they moved in on demonstrators in a poor neighborhood in southwestern Kabul about 7:30 a.m., according to Mohamed Zahir, chief of the Kabul police’s criminal investigations division. The rare outbreak of violence in the Afghan capital illustrated how


viscerally many Muslims have reacted to the since-canceled plan to burn Islam’s holy book on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The incident also underscores the tenuous security situation in the


country ahead of Saturday’s parliamentary elections, which theTaliban has threatened to disrupt with attacks. Zahir said investigators suspect Taliban members instigated the


protest in an effort to stoke anti-American sentiment. “Some Taliban infiltrated the protest, and that’swhy it became violent,” he said. “They were firing on police from neighboring houses.” Nisarubin Baryalai, the head of the Kabul provincial council, said he accompanied police officers to the scene at their request. Demonstra- tors were chanting, “Down with the U.S., down with the people who help them,” he said. Crowd estimates ranged from a fewhundred to 3,000. —Ernesto Londono and Javed Hamdard


ISRAEL LEAL/ASSOCIATED PRESS PAKISTAN


U.S. drone attacks kill 15 in northwest Missiles fired by suspectedU.S.


drones killed at least 15 militants in two strikes in northwest Paki-


stan onWednesday, security offi- cials said, part of a surge in such attacks near the Afghan border. The strikes targeted militants


in North Waziristan, a major sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban on the Afghan border. In a pre-dawn attack, drone


Fishermen inMahahual, a coastal town in southeasternMexico, rush to secure their boats as Tropical Storm Karl churns up the surf. Karl is expected to weaken as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula.


aircraft fired eight missiles at a militant compound on the out- skirts of the region’s main town of Miran Shah, killing 12 militants. Hours later, drones struck anoth-


ercompoundinDattaKhel, about 25 miles west of Miran Shah, killing at least three militants. Security officials said those killed in the first strike were


Pakistani militants affiliated with the Haqqani network, one of the Afghan factions fighting U.S.-led foreign forces across the border. The identity of the dead in the


second strike, the 13th such at- tack this month, could not be immediately ascertained.


—Reuters


Blast kills 9 Iraqi troops near Mosul: Nine Iraqi soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb de- stroyed a bus in a village 20 miles outside Mosul, in Iraq’s volatile north. The soldiers were off duty and heading home, said a police source in Mosul, considered the last urban stronghold of the in- surgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.


Indian talks on Kashmir violence fail: A meeting of the Indian government and opposition par- ties to resolve spiraling separatist protests in Kashmir ended in a deadlock, even as four more pro- testers were killed in police clash- es. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting came two days after 18 people were killed.


France resists E.U. criticism of Romapolicy: Inan ongoing battle over Paris’s crackdown on Roma migrants, France hit back at a European Commission official who likened the French policy to Nazi practices. “This kind of out- burst is not appropriate,” said France’s minister of European af- fairs, Pierre Lellouche. —From news services


Medical workers at a hospital in Fallujah treat a 90-year-old woman who was injured in a raid by Iraqi andU.S. security forces.


advisers totheIraqi forces,Ameri- can and Iraqi officials said. De- spite the official end of the U.S. combatmission, about 4,500 U.S. Special Operations forces remain in Iraq. Iraqi officials in Anbar prov-


ince said U.S. and Iraqi troops began raiding houses at 3 a.m. in Jubil, about 30 miles west of Baghdad. Among the dead, they said, were a 70-year-old man and three of his sons, who were all asleep in their yard when they were killed by a grenade.Afourth son died at a hospital, the Iraqi officials said. Troops also entered a second


house in the area and killed Ya- seen Kassar, a former Iraqi mili- tary commander, Iraqi officials said, as well as two people in a third house.


It was not immediately clear


whether thetroopshadbeenlook- ing for Kassar or any of the other people killed. Many Iraqi army commanders who were fired shortly after the 2003 U.S.-led in- vasion of Iraq later became insur- gent leaders. LateWednesday, aU.S.military


spokesman disputed the local Iraqi officials’ account. Maj. Rob Phillips said that four suspected al-Qaeda militants were killed and three were wounded after security forceswere fired upon as they approached the building theywere targeting. Iraqi forces fatally shot two


residents as they emerged from their homes, reportedly armed, Phillips said, adding that four sus- pectswere also arrested. The incident could heighten


tensions in Anbar province, whichwasamongthestrongholds of the Sunni insurgency between 2004 and 2007. As U.S. troops have thinned out in recent months, insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq have sought to regain a foothold there. “The securitysituationinFallu-


jah may deteriorate because of what happened today,” said Ab- dulfattah Izghear, a local city council member. “We asked U.S. troops and the Iraqi government to explain this unjustified action andthisnakedaggressionagainst civilians.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-


Maliki, who is in charge of the Iraqi special forces, ordered an investigation of the incident, the state-run network al-Iraqiya re- ported.


zachariaj@washpost.com


Special correspondentsOthman al- Mukhtar in Fallujah and Aziz Alwan in Baghdad contributed to this report.


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010


HELMAND


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