Afghanistan poised for uncertain election as US forces exit (via AFP)
Afghanistan heads to the polls Saturday to choose a new president after Hamid Karzai’s 13-year reign and a US-led military campaign which have radically changed the country but failed to defeat the Taliban. The first round of the election comes as the…
This post was republished using Repost. Please read it on Informed Comment directly: https://www.juancole.com/2014/04/afghanistan-president-security.html
——
Related video:
VOA: Afghanistan Deploys Security Forces Nationwide to Secure…
What actual public threats did the Taliban issue? It’s taken for granted in pretty much all the Western coverage that the Taliban has threatened violence on election day, but the apparent lack of violence yesterday means either the Taliban hadn’t really made threats specifically around election day and the Western press was just assuming there would be violence, or the Taliban failed miserably to follow up on threats it made.
Obviously there was the murder of the AP photographer on Friday, the Taverna attack in January, and a couple of other isolated incidents, but those hardly amount to a big campaign to kill people trying to vote.