Abdullah wins key ally in Afghan presidential race
Ghani not interested in deals
KABUL, May 11, (Agencies): Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah received a boost in the race for the Afghan presidency on Sunday when one of the pre-election favourites dropped out and backed his team ahead of next month’s expected run-off.
Zalmay Rassoul, who finished third in April’s first round with 11.5 percent of the vote, told journalists in Kabul he had endorsed Abdullah to strengthen national unity, and because the pair campaigned on similar platforms.
Preliminary results showed Abdullah and his closest rival, former World Bank economist
Ashraf Ghani, sharing over 75 percent of the vote but neither winning an absolute majority.
The Afghan election commission will announce official first round results on Wednesday from the election, in which President Hamid Karzai was constitutionally barred from running again.
Evidence of widespread fraud reported by the country’s Independent Election Complaints Commission have taken the gloss off the third presidential poll since US-led forces drove the Taleban from power in 2001.
The vote marks the first democratic transfer of power in the country’s history, however, uncertainty over the outcome risks stalling crucial foreign aid and economic reform.
Analysts said delays could also foment ethnic tensions and leave a political vacuum in which the Taleban could take advantage.
Powerful
Rassoul, another ex-foreign minister, was considered one the pre-election favourites, having won the backing of some members of the powerful Karzai family. The presidential office said on Sunday that Hamid Karzai favoured no one candidate.
Rassoul’s backing for Abdullah was seen as crucial, given most of his support is from the Pashtun dominated south of the country. Abdullah, who is half-Pashtun and half-Tajik, draws most of his support from the Tajik community in the north.
“Our platforms were similar to Rassoul, which is what brought us together,” said Abdullah. “We want equality among the Afghan people and the next government will be monitored by the people.”
Rassoul is the second of the eight candidates to quit the race and endorse Abdullah, after former Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai made the same announcement last week.
Ghani, an ex-finance minister, has said he is not interested in deal making and his team will win a run-off on their own.
A second round is seen as a risky proposition in Afghanistan, given security concerns, the prospect of a low turnout and the cost — the bill for the first round was put at more than $100 million.
Underlining the security threat, Taleban insurgents announced their spring offensive would start on Monday. They vowed to target Afghan and foreign forces, and the political process.
Afghan troops are responsible for most security, as foreign combat troops prepare to leave the country by a yearend deadline.
Abdullah and Ghani say they will sign a bilateral security agreement permitting a small force of American troops in Afghanistan for counterinsurgency and training purposes.
In another development, the United States is trying to sell or dispose of billions of dollars in military hardware, including sophisticated and highly specialized mine resistant vehicles as it packs up to leave Afghanistan after 13 years of war.
But the efforts are complicated in a region where relations between neighboring countries are mired in suspicion and outright hostility.
A statement by the US Embassy in Pakistan said Islamabad is interested in buying used US equipment. The statement said Pakistan’s request is being reviewed but any equipment it receives, including the coveted mine resistant vehicles, will not likely come from its often angry neighbor Afghanistan.
An earlier US Forces statement was definite: Pakistan would not get any US equipment being sold out of Afghanistan.
Interview
Mark Wright, Department of Defense spokesman, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the US would like to sell to “nearby countries” the equipment that is too costly to ship back home.
Among the items for sale are 800 MRAPs, highly sophisticated Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles. Selling them off could mean a savings of as much as $500 million and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues, he said. The computerized MRAPs have been used by US service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, as protection against the deadly roadside bombs used relentlessly by insurgents.
According to an Associated Press count at least 2,176 members of the US military have died in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Many were killed by roadside bombs.
Still it seems certain that Afghanistan’s nearest neighbor Pakistan won’t be getting any of the excess 800 MRAPs that are up for sale by the departing US military, although roadside bombs have been one of the deadliest weapons used by Pakistani insurgents against an estimated 170,000 Pakistani soldiers deployed in the tribal regions that border Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Earlier the head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Gen Joseph F. Dunford told a Pentagon briefing that Pakistan would be interested in getting MRAPs.
A statement issued by the US Embassy said the US is “currently reviewing” Pakistan’s request for a variety of items under what the US calls its “excess defense articles” — a category that includes the 800 MRAPs in Afghanistan.
Reports that Pakistan might be interested in the MRAPs raised hackles in Kabul, with the authorities saying all the equipment should stay in Afghanistan.
“We are strongly opposed to any deal in this regard without consultation with Afghanistan and we have clearly conveyed this to the US,” Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi told the AP. “It is in contradiction to the cooperative norms between strategic partners, Afghanistan and the US.”
In a statement last week aimed at easing Kabul’s concerns that no military equipment from Afghanistan would go to Pakistan, Dunford said “our commitment to the Afghan people and the Afghan National Security Forces is unwavering.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai routinely lashes out at the United States for not attacking Pakistani territory where he says insurgents waging war against his government have found a safe sanctuary.