Afghanistan province votes a week late

KABUL: Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar votes in parliamentary elections on Saturday, a week after 32 of the country’s 34 provinces went to the polls, a delay caused by the assassination of its police chief by Taliban insurgents.

During two days of voting last weekend, insurgents launched some 250 attacks across the country, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 100, the interior ministry said.

Kandahar police chief General Abdul Razeq, one of Afghanistan’s most feared anti-Taliban commanders, was killed two days before the elections, leaving a dangerous security vacuum.

“The security forces may not have time to regroup in the aftermath of Razeq’s assassination,” said Graeme Smith, a consultant for the International Crisis Group.

Razeq and Kandahar’s intelligence agency commander were killed when a member of the provincial governor’s bodyguard opened fire on officials leaving a meeting with the U.S. commander of Afghanistan’s NATO-led force, General Scott Miller. Miller escaped unharmed, but a US general was one of two Americans wounded in the attack that further weakened the hold of President Ashraf Ghani’s Western-backed government on security.

Thousands of soldiers were deployed on Saturday to boost the morale of voters shaken by the killing of Razeq.