Afghan voters rush to register for poll despite attacks

[World News]

View attachment 4841​

Crowds queued up outside voter registration centres in Afghanistan on Sunday and presidential candidates held large outdoor rallies for supporters, six days ahead of elections that have been shaken by Taliban attacks. The vote, which will choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai, comes as US-led foreign troops withdraw after 13 years of fighting the fierce Islamist insurgency raging across the south and east of the country. One Romanian soldier was killed on Sunday by an improvised explosive device (IED) in the southern province of Zabul, taking the US-led coalition death toll to 3,429 since operations began in 2001. On Saturday, the Kabul headquarters of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) was attacked when five Taliban militants occupied a nearby building and unleashed rockets and gunfire onto the fortified compound.

Continue reading...