Afghanistan, over 200 deaths from the runoff. Herat, Taliban cut the fingers of those who voted

KABUL – The ballot to elect the new president has cost Afghanistan so much blood, so many human lives and so many violent cruelties. A statement released, the next day, by the spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Zahir Azimi, speaks of 227 deaths, including 33 civilians, 18 soldiers and 176 Taliban. The counting of the wounded is equally impressive: 63 civilians and 93 Taliban. An obvious escalation, when the circle is tightened around the choice of the successor of Hamid Karzai: the same Azimi confirmed that the number of security threats was higher yesterday, compared to the first round of last April 5th.

For their part, the Taliban claim to have led 868 attacks during the runoff, against “just” 150 recognized by the Afghan Interior Ministry. On their Internet page, militants from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan assure that they have carried out “hundreds of large-scale offensives, affecting, inter alia, voting centers, security posts and roads leading to the polling stations”.

Afghan voters had to choose yesterday between former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who got 45% in the first round, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, credited after the first round of 31% of the vote. Karzai, who led Afghanistan since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.Share

Among the bloodiest episodes, that cost the lives of 11 people, including four employees of the Electoral Commission, blown up in the explosion of a craft bomb along a road in northern Afghanistan, specifically in Aybak, capital of the province of Samangan. The explosion hit a minibus, six women, one child and four men among the victims. The provincial government spokesman, Sediq Azizi, specified that the attack took place last night, when the run-off day had ended.

Also yesterday, 7 suicide bombers and 3 policemen died in a blitz by a Taliban commando that managed to enter a police station in Kandahar City, capital of the homonymous province. The media reports in Kabul. It took 15 hours, from last night to this morning, to the Afghan security forces to end the operation. Dawa Khan Menapal, spokesman of the Kandahar provincial government, explained to Tolo TV that at the time of the attack, yesterday afternoon, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the police station entrance near the Kabul Gate allowing the other six to penetrate into the building. It was only this morning, says the Pajhwok news agency, that the authorities have given the green light to the counteroffensive that ended at the end of the morning with the killing of the six militants.

But it’s not just the attacks that tell the run-off day in Afghanistan. The chronicles also refer to the return to the practices of fear and physical punishment according to cruel and obscurantist ways. The Taliban had warned citizens not to go to the polls. Yesterday, in the western province of Herat, 11 civilians were guilty of having transgressed their order. The choice of the finger to amputate was not difficult: the sharp one marked by the ink was severed. Local police reported.

15 June 2014