The Taliban vowed Thursday to intensify their attacks in the build-up to Afghanistan's presidential election next week as authorities tried to play down fears that the Islamists could wreck the poll. As the international community said a deadly Taliban attack on a UN hostel in Kabul would not disrupt the November 7 run-off, the Islamist militia said they had drawn up a battle plan designed to torpedo the process.
Organisers of the election meanwhile said they had agreed to a demand from President Hamid Karzai's challenger, ex-foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, for 20,000 of his observers to be accredited to help prevent vote-rigging. Wednesday's attack on the Bekhtar guesthouse, carried out by three Taliban fighters who blew themselves up after a two-hour gunbattle, has raised the stakes for the international community ahead of the crucial poll.
A Taliban spokesman dismissed claims in Kabul that the militants' capability had diminished since a fraud-tainted first round in August, saying Afghan security services "are not effective against our operations and tactics."
"We'll intensify our attacks in the coming days. We'll disrupt the elections," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. "We have new plans and tactics for attacks to disrupt the elections."
Assaults and intimidation by the Taliban, who were toppled by US-led forces in 2001, were a major deterrent to voters in the first round of the election on August 20 when turnout in some provinces was as low as five percent. Almost 200 violent incidents around the first vote were attributed to the Taliban, including rocket and grenade attacks on polling stations.
The Afghan defence ministry, however, played down the prospects of widespread Taliban attacks this time. "The enemy had prepared for months with foreign support, allocating loads of funds to disrupt the elections in a well-planned effort," spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. "This time round, they haven't had the same amount of time to prepare a campaign of attacks and the Pakistani Taliban who helped the Afghan Taliban last time to disturb the election are busy fighting in Pakistan."