Taliban Urges Afghans to Boycott Voting

Taliban rebels Friday urged Afghans to boycott weekend legislative elections that many hope will marginalize the insurgents. Meanwhile, a candidate was shot dead and four other people were killed in bombings near polling stations.

With about 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops on alert, election workers used dilapidated trucks, helicopters and even donkeys to haul millions of paper ballots to more than 6,000 polling centers for Sunday’s vote.

Hopes are high that the vote will help end a quarter-century of violence and shore up a fragile democracy by demonstrating public support for an elected government. But the Taliban and other militants showed no signs of backing off.

Purported Taliban spokesman Mullah Latif Hakimi urged Afghans not to take part in the elections but said Taliban insurgents would not attack civilians headed to the polls. He said they would target only areas where U.S.-led coalition forces were deployed and advised civilians to avoid such places.

“Our demand to the people of Afghanistan is, ‘Don’t participate in this election because it is a U.S. policy.’ The Taliban is against all U.S. policies,” he told Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location.

Hakimi’s statements have sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue. Afghan and U.S. military officials say they believe he speaks for factions of the group, though his exact ties to the Taliban leadership cannot be verified.

Army Brig. Gen. James G. Champion, deputy commander in charge of combat operations in Afghanistan, said U.S.-led coalition forces expected Taliban insurgents to continue efforts to disrupt the elections. But he did not believe there would be a large attack like recent ones in Iraq.

The insurgents have threatened a “spectacular event,” said Champion, speaking to Pentagon reporters in Washington. But, he said, “we have not seen the ability of the enemy here in Afghanistan to mount coordinated attacks across the country. They would be looking for that one event to get into an area and cause damage and loss of life. ... But I don’t see any kind of situation happening like you’re seeing in Iraq.”

In the latest attack blamed on the Taliban, a roadside bomb hit a public bus near a voting center in central Ghazni province Friday, killing three civilians and wounding seven others, including children, said local police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang.

Gunmen dragged election candidate Abdul Hadi from his house in southern Helmand province Thursday night and killed him, said Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the governor.

His death brought to seven the number of candidates killed in the run-up. Four election workers also have been slain.

Security was tight in the capital. Road checkpoints have sprung up, with police pulling over vehicles ranging from hay wagons to ribbon-decked cars carrying newlyweds.

Armed police sat atop trucks that left a Kabul warehouse loaded with ballots bound for polling stations.

Associated Press correspondents Tomas Munita in Bamiyan and Noor Khan in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.