US nat'l security adviser meets Afghan candidates

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 6:26 AM Posted by Beijing News


KABUL – President Barack Obama's national security adviser insisted Tuesday that the U.S. is staying out of Afghanistan's upcoming presidential race — a common refrain among officials seeking to allay suspicions that Washington controls Afghan politics.

Gen. Jim Jones met with opposition candidates challenging President Hamid Karzai for the country's top office in the Aug. 20 vote. Jones said the election is a milestone for Afghanistan's young democracy and called on the government to create conditions for a free and fair vote.

Jones told reporters that the U.S. is not supporting any of the candidates. He first visited Karzai at the presidential palace and later held talks with three top opposition candidates: Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister; Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister; and Mirwais Yasini, a former deputy speaker of parliament.

Thousands of newly deployed U.S. and NATO troops will help provide security for the election, which Karzai is favored to win. Afghan officials are studying how to carry out voting in at least 10 rural districts where the government has no control.

Jones is in Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss the Obama administration's revamped strategy for the volatile region. He will also stop in India.

In the latest violence, bomb attacks killed five Afghan civilians Tuesday.

A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of international troops in central Ghazni province, ramming into them on a highway about 2.5 miles 4 kilometers west of Ghazni city, said Ismail Jahangir, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Jahangir said two civilians were killed in the blast, but he had no information about any casualties among the troops.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb killed three employees of an Afghan nonprofit group working with the U.N. to deliver assistance in northern Jowzjan province.

Their vehicle hit the bomb while they were heading to a project site, said Nader Farhad, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, which was working with the group, called Development and Humanitarian Services for Afghanistan.

"We are of course concerned and saddened and shocked by the incident, and we of course share sympathy with the families," Farhad said.

Civilian deaths have become an increasingly contentious issue in Afghanistan as worsening violence has turned more villagers and passers-by into victims. While much of the debate has focused on airstrikes by international troops, the majority of deaths have been attributed to the Taliban and other militants.

The United Nations has said more than 2,100 civilians died in the Afghan war last year. International and Afghan forces killed about 40 percent of them.

Also Tuesday, NATO forces said they had successfully taken control of a Taliban stronghold through a major air operation in southern Helmand province. More than 500 troops were involved in the offensive, which started on June 19 and continued through Monday.

NATO forces said in a statement that the goal of the strike had been to secure a number of canal and river crossings to establish a permanent NATO presence in the area and make it possible for residents to vote in August elections.

The statement says "a number of insurgents" were killed, but it did not give an exact figure.







A surfer catches a wave off of Kewalo Basin in Hawaii. AP Photo/Marco Garcia

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