Taliban threaten Afghan vote; Sunni lawmakers gunned down in Baghdad

Taliban threatening Afghan vote

The growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan may endanger the prospects of holding transparent and effective elections in many provinces, officials say.

As the Iraq war dragged on, Taliban insurgents have re-established their positions in the country, increasing their strength in Logar province, just south of Kabul.

The increased strength of the Taliban in many of the restive southern and eastern provinces raised concerns that the insurgency may undermine the chance to hold free and fair elections in August.

Khoja Aminullah Fazelly, the director of the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan, told Emirati newspaper The National that Taliban militants were working to prevent voter-registration efforts.

"There were a lot of people who tried to come here to get their registration cards, but the Taliban threatened them and searched them," he said.

As part of the Washington effort to turn the tide in Afghanistan, U.S. and international forces are deploying to many of the more volatile provinces ahead of provincial and presidential elections scheduled for Aug. 20.

Incumbent President Hamid Karzai squares off against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.

Afghan ballot lottery held

Afghan elections officials held a lottery in the capital, Kabul, to determine where candidate names would appear on the ballot for the August vote.

Officials with the Independent Election Commission held a drawing for the 44 candidates in the Afghan presidential contest as well as provincial council candidates to determine their position on the official ballot.

"We had invited the candidates and their representatives for the ballot-lottery, which were conducted for both the presidential and provincial lists," said Mohammad Farid Afghanizai, an external relations official with IEC.

Elections officials conducted a vetting process recently, disqualifying several candidates for the presidential contest. IEC officials said if additional candidates dropped out or were disqualified later, the position on the ballot paper would be modified, the U.N. Assistance Mission for Afghanistan reports.

Incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces challenges from his former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and his former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Abdullah drew No. 14, Karzai No. 37 and Ghani No. 39.

Petraeus doctrine applied to AFPAK

Despite many differences, the counterinsurgency strategy planned for Afghanistan can draw from many of the lessons learned in Iraq, a top U.S. commander said.

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus spoke at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, on the challenges ahead for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

Petraeus, who indoctrinated a strategy in Iraq that used domestic resources when he served as the top commander there, said despite the differences between the two wars, the strategy remains relatively the same.

"Afghanistan is different" from Iraq, he said. "You have to understand it, but you can still apply a lot of this. And what we are doing now is, in fact, taking those lessons from Iraq and trying to apply them to Afghanistan."

Petraeus laid out a series of strategies for Afghanistan employed previously in Iraq, including close ties between the troops and the native population, holding secure areas and vetting potential future partners.

Petraeus acknowledged the violence in Afghanistan may turn worse as American forces prepare for the surge ahead of national elections in August but said the effort was necessary to prevent the country from descending into a terrorist sanctuary as it had prior to 2001.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to send another 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, who will operate under the authority of the new American commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

McChrystal was confirmed as a four-star general earlier this week.

Sunni leader gunned down in Baghdad

A 15-year-old assassin shot and killed Hareth al-Ubaidi, the leader of the Sunni-led Iraqi Accordance Front, as he left Friday prayers in Baghdad.

The gunman, who was hiding in the restroom of the al-Shawaf mosque in Baghdad, opening fire on the lawmaker as he finished giving the sermon during Friday prayers.

The assailant threw a grenade into the crowd of worshipers after firing on the lawmaker. He later blew himself up as security personnel for Ubaidi gave chase, killing some of the guards, the Voices of Iraq news agency reports.

Ubaidi was nominated as the head of the group in May. He succeeded Iyad al-Samarrai, who took over as the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament following a bitter row over the position.

The IAF withdrew from the unity government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in 2007 over a variety of political disputes but returned to the government in July 2008.

The assassination comes as American combat troops prepare to pull out of Iraqi cities by the end of June. Maliki had warned of increased violence amid the troop redeployment.

Maliki commented on a Wednesday attack in Dhi Qar province that killed more than 30 people, saying political violence was expected to rise as U.S. troops pull back during the prelude to national elections in January.

U.S. weighs in on Iraqi detainees

U.S. military officials denied facilitating the transfer of detained former regime officials from Iraqi prisoners to foreign countries.

The United States currently holds several high-level officials from the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Under the terms of a bilateral Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad, U.S. officials cede legal authority to the Iraqi government, but allow for certain provisions.

In an interview with Iraqi analytical Web site Niqash, Brig. Gen. David Quantock, the commander in charge of detainee affairs for multinational forces in Iraq, denied rumors U.S. officials were facilitating the transfer of former regime officials.

Quantock said the U.S. military has turned over 29 members of the former regime to Iraqi custody, but still holds a number of them because of inadequate accommodations offered by Baghdad.

"These are old officials who suffer from health problems and they should be properly accommodated," he said. "If the government arranges for such an adequate place, we will hand them over without hesitation."

A variety of former officials, from Saddam Hussein to Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical" Ali for his use of chemical weapons against Kurds, passed through U.S. military custody on their way to Iraqi tribunals.

Quantock said there were more than 11,000 Iraqi detainees held in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, including one woman and several juveniles.

More work needed for displaced in Iraq

The Iraqi government needs to work with international donors to better assess and implement assistance for the displaced community, an analysis says.

Roughly 10 percent of the 28 million people in Iraq are internally displaced, with another 2 million refugees living mainly in Syria and Jordan.

With political reconciliation and national security showing signs of improvement, the rates of return are expected to increase. With that in mind, the Iraqi government needs to work with the international donor community to address issues facing the displaced, a report by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement recommends.

The report advises Baghdad to work toward strengthening the judicial system as part of an effort to handle outstanding issues related to property restitution. International and national players, for their part, should work to monitor the settlement of the displaced while providing basic and community services to assist in their transition.

Meanwhile, a failure to identify vulnerabilities across a wide spectrum of the population, not just among the displaced population, suggests some of the necessary assistance is misplaced.

Nevertheless, with general security and political trends showing signs of improvement in Iraq, the time is "ripe" to put renewed effort behind the displacement issues, the report concludes.

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(dgraeber@upi.com)