Agence France Presse  --  Arab News

KABUL, 2 May 2004 — Beset by security and logistical problems, war-torn Afghanistan’s second phase of voter registration ahead of landmark elections began slowly yesterday due to a public holiday, officials said.

Afghanistan is due to hold its first post-Taleban general elections in September but eight million people have yet to register to vote and remnants of the ousted fundamentalist militia have threatened the process.

Some 240 registration sites were due to open in all except four provinces on May 1, but many centers remained closed yesterday, a national holiday to commemorate the Prophet’s birthday.

Electoral Commission chief Farooq Wardak said he did not yet have full figures on how many sites had opened around the country. “Despite Saturday being a holiday, in (central) Bamiyan province registration has begun,” he told AFP.

The full rollout of the voter registration sites could be delayed one extra day because Sunday was a holiday for most United Nations staff working on the project, he said.

Voter registration was taking place at some “sites in the east in the Jalalabad region,” UN spokeswoman on electoral issues Catarina Fabiansson said.

“We are getting some of them in Kunduz,” in the north of the country, she said. Registration in the sensitive southern area of Kandahar, a former Taleban stronghold, was due to begin today, Fabiansson said.

Registering 10 million Afghans ahead of the country’s first general elections is a massive and costly exercise in a country where transport and communications infrastructure is very poor.

An estimated 85 percent of Afghans are unable to read, making it difficult to employ enough people to work at the registration sites.

By the end of the second phase of project in late June about 4,600 voter registration sites are expected to have opened in all provinces.

Voter registration in four regions, southeastern Zabul and Paktika provinces, south-central Uruzgan province and eastern Nuristan, has been delayed for security reasons.

Registration of voters began in December in Kabul and the country’s seven other major cities. So far some 1,873,378 Afghans have registered, of whom about 30 percent are women, according the UN.

Meanwhile, Afghan troops, hunting Al-Qaeda and Taleban remnants in Kandahar, have arrested 18 suspects during a cleanup operation, a news report said.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted unnamed sources in Kandahar as saying the militants were detained in the Panjwaei and Band-e-Taimour districts.

Those arrested include Fazal Ahmed, an official of the “Department for Promotion of Virtues” which the Taleban had created during their regime to ensure enforcement of strict Islamic laws. Two others were named as Mulla Siddiqueullah and Mulla Allauddin.

The reported arrests followed an ambush two day ago by hard-line Taleban fighters which left five Afghan soldiers dead in the southern district of Panjwaei.

Five bloodstained vehicles, apparently used for carrying wounded militiamen, were also seized during this week’s operation that involved only Afghan troops, the report said.

Panjwaei district has been the scene of attacks by Taleban and Al- Qaeda operatives in recent weeks, leaving at least 15 dead.

Taleban have frequently targeted coalition forces, aid workers and supporters of President Hamid Karzai since the ouster of their regime in 2001 by US-led troops. At least 150 people have been killed by suspected terrorists since the start of 2004.