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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Outgoing IAEA chief has tough choice on Iran

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer



VIENNA – For close to a year, diplomats say, a report on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons experiments has been sitting in a drawer of a U.N. nuclear monitoring agency, with access limited to only a few top officials.

The question is whether the document — a summary of all the International Atomic Energy Agency knows about Iran's nuclear program — will be made public when agency publishes its latest report on Iran within two weeks.

As that date approaches IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is faced with the tough choice of sharing all his agency findings about Iran's alleged arms programs, or leaving the decision to his successor later this year.

The existence of a secret IAEA summary of Iran's alleged weapons experiments based on agency investigations and U.S. and other intelligence was confirmed to The Associated Press over the past few days by three senior western diplomats from nations accredited to the IAEA, as well as a senior international official who follows the Iran nuclear issue.

What's more, the information concerning allegations that Iran actively pursued research into developing nuclear warheads and the way to deliver them has been available since September, the diplomats say.

Since then, the U.S. and its allies have pushed the agency to circulate the summary among the IAEA's 35 board member nations of what it knew and its conclusions about the allegations, said the diplomats, who demanded anonymity for discussing confidential issues.

But although even some of his senior aides favor publication, ElBaradei has balked, they said. The agency chief has been keen to avoid moves that could harden already massive Iranian intransigence on cooperating with his agency on probing the allegations and on other issues — and of pushing the U.S. or Israel closer to a possible military strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said Thursday the agency would not comment.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning IAEA chief may possibly already be focusing on his legacy as his 12-year tenure winds down.

A restricted draft resolution shared with the AP and prepared by his agency for a 35-nation board meeting starting Sept. 7 pays "tribute" to Elbaradei and lauds the "significant contribution" he has made to the work of the agency and "the cause of international peace and security during his distinguished and successful tenure as Director General."

The draft calls for him to be named "Director General Emeritus" — an honor also accorded to his immediate predecessors.

His last day is Nov. 30. And as that date draws closer ElBaradei has repeated calls for talks on and with Iran instead of tough talk — gaining praise from the developing world but enforcing the view among his Western critics that he often oversteps his agency's mandate as purely technical organization with no political message.

He also has sharp words for his critics: "As to how we write our reports, that's our business," he told a June session of the board.

Washington unsuccessfully lobbied in 2005 to block ElBaradei's reappointment because his statements on Iraq and Iran were peppered with barely disguised criticisms of U.S. policy. The West has also viewed some statements on Israel and Gaza as overtly political, even while they were praised by Arab nations and their backers.

Elbaradei's reports on Iran have become more critical after months of continued Iranian stonewalling of IAEA efforts to monitor and investigate Iran's nuclear programs.

Still, Western delegations say they do not go far enough in faulting Tehran for withholding information and continuing to expand uranium enrichment, which can create both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for warheads.

Iran dismisses the weapons programs allegations as groundless and ElBaradei himself has said there is no "concrete evidence" that Iran was engaged in such work — even while suggesting two months ago that Tehran wants to have the capability to build such arms.

But a senior diplomat who regularly talks with leading agency experts told the AP last year that the experts viewed much of the intelligence forwarded by the U.S and other nations on alleged secret Iranian nuclear arms work as "compelling."

U.S. intelligence includes material on a laptop computer reportedly smuggled out of Iran and indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.

Among other intelligence Washington also gave the agency information on the alleged "Green Salt Project" — a plan the U.S. claims links diverse components of a nuclear weapons program, including uranium enrichment, high explosives testing and a missile re-entry vehicle, with diagrams in Iran's possession showing how to mold uranium metal into warhead form.

Diplomats attending closed-door IAEA presentations to board member nations have said they were shown an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle that the presenter suggested seemed designed to carry a nuclear warhead.

Ahead of the next ElBaradei Iran report, one of officials interviewed for this article suggested ElBaradei was likely to heed the pressure and focus in some way on what the agency knows or surmises on Iran's alleged weapons programs.

But he declined to say what the information was, whether it would be complete and if it would be in annex form or in a report subsection.

Until recently, ElBaradei appeared to be facing another thorny issue in the upcoming report — how toughly to take Iran to task for stonewalling IAEA requests to expand its monitoring of its Natanz uranium enrichment site.

But that issue appeared defused with diplomats telling The AP Thursday that Iran last week agreed to meet at least some of the requests. The agency had been seeking additional cameras and inspections of the Natanz site, to keep track with the rapidly expanding enrichment program which — if modified — can make the fissile core of warheads.

Iran's stonewalling had raised agency concerns that its experts might not be able to make sure that some of the enriched material produced at Natanz is not diverted for potential weapons use.

In addition, the diplomats said, Iran allowed IAEA experts last week to visit its heavy water reactor site near Arak in central Iran, lifting a yearlong ban that the agency said contravened mutual agreements.

Western countries have repeatedly called on Iran to stop construction of the reactor, fearing it could be used as a second track toward building a warhead — when finished, say experts, it could produce enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon each year.

But there is no compromise in sight on the issue of allegations Iran worked on developing nuclear arms.

Iran insists it never did — and has blocked IAEA attempts to probe the issue. But the West says Tehran is hiding such past experiments. So the question of whether to go public with what the IAEA knows has become a subject of debate among key IAEA members — and within the agency itself.

Diplomats: Iran improves access to nuke activities

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer

VIENNA – Iran has lifted a yearlong ban and allowed U.N. inspectors to visit a nearly completed nuclear reactor as well as granting greater monitoring rights at another atomic site, diplomats said Thursday.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors visited the nearly finished Arak heavy water reactor last week, the diplomats told The Associated Press. Separately, they said Iran agreed last week to IAEA requests to expand its monitoring of the Natanz uranium enrichment site, which produces material for nuclear fuel that can be further enriched to provide fissile material for warheads.

The diplomats demanded anonymity because their information was confidential.

The agency had been seeking additional cameras and inspections of the Natanz site, to keep track with the rapidly expanding enrichment program which — if modified — can make the fissile core of warheads.

Iran's stonewalling had raised agency concerns that its experts might not be able to make sure that some of the enriched material produced at Natanz is not diverted for potential weapons use.

Since its clandestine enrichment efforts were revealed more than six years ago, Iran has steadily increased activities at its cavernous underground facility at Natanz, a city about 300 miles (500 kilometers) south of Tehran, shrugging off three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions and rejecting talks meant to entice it to mothball the activity.

A June IAEA report said nearly 5,000 centrifuges were now enriching at Natanz — about 1,000 more than at the time of the last agency report, issued in February — with more than 2,000 others ready to start enriching. A new report due in the next week or so is expected to confirm that operations continue to expand — along with Tehran's potential capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Most experts estimate that the more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of low-enriched uranium Iran had accumulated by February was already enough to produce enough weapons-grade material through further enrichment for one nuclear weapon.

Tehran says it has a right to enrich, insists it is not interested in making weapons and has no intention of reconfiguring its operations from churning out nuclear fuel-grade material to highly enriched uranium suitable for nuclear arms.

Before lifting the ban on visiting Arak, Tehran had repeatedly refused IAEA inspection requests, despite warnings by the agency that its stance contravened mutual agreements.

Western countries have repeatedly called on Iran to stop construction of the reactor, fearing it could be used as a second track toward building a warhead. When finished, say experts, Arak could produce enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon each year.

Israeli Policy of Ethnic Cleansing: Veteran Arab Village to Make Way for New Haredi City in Wadi Ara

Mustafa Abu Halaal and Yuad Winter, Haokets

August 19, 2009

Recently plans have been greatly accelerated to establish a Haredi (Jewish ultra-orthodox) city in Wadi Ara, between Harish and Katzir. These latter two cities were already included in the 1990s in the "star plan" of Ariel Sharon, the stated goal of which was to separate Arab cities and to prevent their development through the establishment of new towns for Jews only between them. Now the Ministry of Housing is planning to establish, in the area between Harish and Katzir, no less than 20,000 housing units for Haredis. "We must stop the Arab expansion in Wadi Ara," said Israel’s Minister of Construction and Housing, Ariel Atias.



The area for the planned city borders on the Arab villages of Bartaa, Kufr Qara, Dar Alhanoun and Um Alkatif. The Arab village Dar Alhanoun, which has been in existence the 1920s, is not recognized by the State of Israel with the excuse that this is an area with "scenery characteristics." Now the Ministry of Housing is planning to establish a big city, only 200 meters from the village, while demolition orders have been issued against the existing village homes due to "illegal construction." A large portion of the land of the recognized villages of Um Alkatif and Barta will be confiscated to establish the new Haredi city. In the entrance to Kufr Qara an industrial zone is planned to meet the needs of the Haredi city.

Even before residents of the area had an opportunity to digest the news about the planned big city near the entrance to their homes, new threats are already coming in. On 6 August 2009, inspectors from the Ministry of Interior arrived to Dar Alhanoun accompanied by tens of police officers. The inspectors distributed letters of "invitation" to interrogation to all landowners in the village. In the letters, the Ministry of Interior notifies the residents that they are suspected of violating the law of planning and construction. The police officers and inspectors appeared during the daytime, when the men of the village were at work, and their patrol through the area terrified the women and children in the village.

It appears their goal is to encourage the residents to abandon their village even before final approval by the Ministry of Construction for establishment of the Haredi city. These threats serve only to emphasize the blunt discrimination by the Israeli government. While new cities for Jews-only are being established in the area all the time, the Ministry of Interior is attempting to dispossess the area’s Arab residents from their lands in order to clear the area for a new city only for Jews.

When will this dispossession end? Who will stop the discrimination?

Obama lies to defend US War of Aggression in Afghanistan

Carl Herman

August 19, 2009

The President of the US swears to "faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (article VI, paragraph 2) states: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." One of the most important treaties is that governing when a nation may go to war. After 20th century wars that killed over 100 million human beings, the UN was formed to eliminate war as a foreign policy option The UN Charter is registered in the US State Department as a Treaty in Force.
Therefore, one of the most important Constitutional duties of any US President is to follow the law to not unleash the world’s most powerful destructive force and to defend innocent civilians from such onslaught and misery. This is also one of the most important laws for citizens to understand and hold their political leadership accountable for ethical behavior and demand prosecution in its violation.

On August 17, 2009 President Obama again defended the US invasion of Afghanistan. He called it "fundamental to the defense of our people," and said, "But we must never forget this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

The US legal argument that the invasion of Afghanistan is not a War of Aggression is that the US actions in Afghanistan are defensive. A War of Aggression is defined as a non-defensive war that is unauthorized by the UN Security Council. Osama bin Laden was being protected by the Taliban Afghan government, which made them co-terrorists demonstrating intent to inflict another 9/11 upon the US. This legal opinion of "defensive action" supersedes the opinion of the UN Security Council, who did not authorize use of force.

Let’s review the history of the US invasion of Afghanistan before we analyze the US claim that this is a defensive war. After the attacks of 9/11, the US government requested the cooperation of the Afghanistan government for extradition of Osama bid Laden to be charged with the 9/11 attacks. The Afghan government agreed, as per usual cooperative international law, as soon as the US government provided evidence of bin Laden’s involvement. The US government refused to provide any evidence. The Afghan government refused US troops entering their country and extradition until evidence was provided, and made their argument to the world press for the rule of law to apply to the US extradition request. The US invaded Afghanistan without providing evidence and without UN Security Council approval. President Bush stated, "There’s no need to discuss evidence of innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty." Seven years later, despite promises to do so, the US has not provided any evidence that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, the FBI does not seek bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, stating "there is no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." Some of you might have heard of a bin Laden "confession video." The Pentagon’s "official translation" seems to indicate foreknowledge of the attacks, but independent translations show that the "official" version is a manipulation and an accurate translation shows no evidence of involvement. Apparently, the FBI is in agreement with the independent translations as they do not seek him for the crime. Indeed, Princeton professor of International Law Richard Falk articulates doubts concerning many aspects of the government’s explanation of 9/11. This view of a counter-government explanation is now shared by over 1,500 reputable scholars and professionals with academic training and professional experience that qualify them as experts in their testimonies.

Facts: The US invaded Afghanistan. The US provided no evidence to the Taliban Afghan government that bin Laden was involved in 9/11 and still have not done so. The US has provided no evidence that the Taliban supported the attacks of 9/11. The UN Security Council did not authorize use of force in Afghanistan. The US has provided no evidence of imminent threat to US national security from the Taliban. With no evidence of imminent threat or attack by Afghanistan, the US invasion is a War of Aggression. And yes, it's just that simple.

The words of President Obama are the same as all tyrants: whatever justification to best sell the most horrific crime a nation can commit. They are lies of commission and lies of omission to not give you the context I just provided of the law. The US is engaged in Wars of Aggression with our tax dollars and under our flag. Consider the words of Reichsmarschall Herman Goering, President of the Reichstag in Nazi Germany from 1932-1945, and considered among to top few in Nazi "leadership."

"Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
– Hermann Goering, 1946 Nuremberg Trial. Quoted by Nuremberg prison psychologist, Gilbert Gustave in Nuremberg Diary, page 278, published by Da Capo Press, 1995
ISBN 0306806614, 9780306806612

Let’s consider your role in this. If you want to consider yourself a responsible citizen, you have to upgrade your definition to understand, speak powerfully, and take action concerning violation of your nation’s war powers. If not, your definition of responsibility includes complacency with hundreds of billions of our collective dollars and the most destructive impact upon millions of human beings. I recommend practice of the above information so you can explain it to anyone within two minutes. Allow me two simple analogies: if you consider yourself a sports fan and/or player, you would HAVE to understand the most important few rules of the game. If you didn’t, others would tell you that with that level of ignorance you aren’t serious about the game. If you were in a relationship and your partner spent a lot of time and money with another person, you would ask what your partner is doing with that person. And if all it took to verify your partner’s story was as much time as it took to read this article, and you never verified the story, others would tell you with that level of complacency considering the large amount of time and money involved with your partner that you aren’t serious about having a relationship. Does that help motivate you?

What will you do? Please answer your heart and mind’s strongest calling. As for a policy response, unless you have a better idea, I suggest supporting a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as I’ve previously argued.

If you appreciate my work, please subscribe at the top of this page just under the title of the article. If you want to end these Wars of Aggression and move this nation to build a brighter future, please share these articles with all who claim they want to be competent citizens. If enough of us are educated, speak powerfully, and take action, these Wars of Aggression will end and we can shift our collective focus to constructive policies. Until such time, we will have more war, destruction and misery in the name of whatever bullshit rhetoric our "leadership" thinks the public will hope and believe.

In Afghanistan Vote, Threats, Anger and Empty Polling Stations

By ARYN BAKER / KABULBy ARYN BAKER / KABUL

The streets of Kabul were eerily quiet on Thursday, as polls for Afghanistan's second presidential election since the fall of the Taliban opened to little fanfare and even smaller crowds. Children, taking advantage of the trafficless streets, flew kites. Watermelon sellers languished in the shade of their carts waiting for a sale. The only customers were police, stationed at every intersection to inspect the few vehicles that passed their way. Kabul residents had been spooked by Wednesday's curious lack of violence, and were apprehensive that the Taliban had planned something big for voting day. They were right to worry. Not long after polls opened, reports of explosions across the capital drove even the most courageous voters indoors. Two improvised bombs went off at polling stations, another five at important intersections and in two other districts gunfire between rival factions prevented voting for the rest of the day.

A government ban on reporting election-day violence only heightened tensions. Nabi Ahmadi, an election volunteer at a station in central Kabul was receiving regular updates via mobile phone from his brother, who was in turn hearing about violence from his network of friends throughout the city. "No one knows where the attacks are happening, so no one knows where it is safe to go vote," he said, gesturing at his empty polling station. Observers and volunteers outnumbered voters 20 to one. Early in the day nearly 100 men and half as many women had voted, he said, but since the news of the first bombing the number of voters had slowed to a trickle even though the immediate neighborhood had remained untouched by violence.

In the 2004 elections, when President Hamid Karzai was voted into power after serving two years as interim leader, Ahmadi remembers thousands of voters showing up at the very same station, a mosque perched on a hill with a commanding view of the city. "This time there is no one," he says. But he doesn't blame the low turnout on insecurity alone. "Over the past seven years people have become disappointed with democracy. They don't see that it has made their lives any better."

Across town a handful of eager voters at another polling station were met by frustrating delays as election workers struggled to set up. Materials had arrived late, and an hour after the polls were supposed to open volunteers were still struggling to fasten shut the white plastic ballot boxes. Zahir, a 29-year-old employee at the Ministry of Finance fumed as he stood in line. "Today everyone in Afghanistan wants to select their favorite candidates, but unfortunately they are not optimistic. Look at this place, it's chaos. Yet we are in central Kabul - what hope do we have for the rural provinces?"

Outside of Kabul the situation was indeed worse, with rocket attacks throughout the country scaring voters from the polls. In Wardak Province, next to Kabul, Taliban intimidation on the roads forced the provincial government to close all polling stations. As a last resort, soldiers from the Afghan National Army started going door to door with ballots, a practice that could easily be mistaken as coercive tactics in favor of the current government. International and independent Afghan observers alike worry that the lack of voters could open the way to fraud: corrupt officials might use the names and registration numbers of voters who didn't turn up with little fear of being caught. With such a low turnout even clean winning candidates are unlikely to have a powerful mandate.

There were some bright spots. Turnout in the northern provinces was extremely high - some districts were reporting 100% turnout by mid afternoon. Residents of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, which is at the center of the Taliban insurgency, defied a Taliban directive not to vote and turned out by the hundreds, according to one voter reached by telephone. "Yes, the Taliban has told us that if we vote they will cut off our fingers, but I don't care," says Assadullah, 24. Fellow voter Golalai Khan, 29, agreed. "We need to vote, as it says on TV that if you don't vote then your favorite candidate will lose." Elsewhere in the violent south, voters didn't turn out at all.

Coming up with a clear national picture is difficult, says Ken Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute, which has sent a large contingent of election observers to Afghanistan. "If there is any trend in what we are witnessing, it is a lot of different types of elections. So that is going to be the challenge - looking at how all these areas voted and analyzing the results."

One universal theme is the low turnout by women. At one station in Kabul no women at all had voted, and in another just dozens turned up compared to hundreds of men. That raises alarm bells. Women registered to vote in higher numbers than men this year, a ratio that many observers find hard to believe in a traditional society such as Afghanistan. Many suspect that men falsely registered fictitious wives and daughters in order to collect extra voting cards that could be in turn used to stuff ballot boxes. Few of the women's stations were monitored, which raises further questions. "I think people know there will be fraud, but what can we do?" asks Zahir. "Even if we all have ink on our fingers it doesn't matter because at the end of the day officials will be adding ballots that are not from the people." When asked why he was even bothering to vote, Zahir just shrugged. "As an Afghan it is my responsibility to help choose our future. But many of my friends have already given up. They didn't even come out today."

Candace Rondeaux, Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group says the insecurity and questions about the value of the vote "given the potential for fraud has kept a number of voters from the polls." A low turnout will do "little to enhance the sense that all Afghans are included in the democratic process," Rondeaux says. "It also raises the possible threat that the incumbent's main rivals will question the results and perhaps encourage a violent response, leaving open a window for the Taliban to fully disrupt Afghanistan's progress."

Zahir sighed as he shuffled forward in line. "It's always this way in Afghanistan. The powerful become more powerful, and the poor people stay poor."

Shell-shocked Gaza children flock to martial arts

by Mai Yaghi



GAZA CITY (AFP) – Salih al-Masri, a skinny nine-year-old in a red martial arts uniform, grits his teeth as he stands barefoot on shards of broken glass and recalls his family's plight during the war in Gaza.

"This sport makes me strong so I can defend myself, my family and my country from the Jews," he says, without betraying the slightest wince of pain.

"We ran away from our home during the war because we were afraid of the shelling," he adds. "But after we returned I started coming here every day to train. Now I'm strong, and I'm not afraid of anyone."

Haunted by what they saw during the massive Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip at the turn of the year, growing numbers of children are flocking to martial arts classes across the devastated Palestinian coastal territory.

Private clubs offering kung fu and karate lessons have attracted scores of new students in the wake of the fighting, a phenomenon child psychologists attribute to widespread mental trauma.

On a recent summer day several of the younger students at a club in the northern town of Beit Lahiya gathered to watch in awe as Salih al-Sawalja, 15, lay on a bed of nails with two other boys standing on his chest.

"No one will be able to mess with us after we become kung fu masters," a wide-eyed Nashaat Abu Harbid, a nine-year-old, says. "Everyone will be afraid of us."

As Sawalja moves on to the next exhibition, where he will walk barefoot over the upturned blades of several large knives, he explains that kung fu increases his self-confidence and allows him to "protect myself from anything".

Helmi Matar, a coach at the Beit Lahiya club, says interest in the martial arts has grown in the wake of the war, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left vast swathes of the impoverished enclave in ruins.

"Interest in the sport grew exponentially after the war because people wanted a distraction and for their kids to release pent-up energy," he says.

A spokesman for Gaza's kung fu and karate union confirmed that attendance at the classes has doubled since the war, which Israel said was aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire from the besieged, Hamas-run strip.

Child psychologists fear that the increased interest stems from the trauma children suffered during the three weeks of near-continual air strikes and shelling.

"Children internalise a huge amount of violence in war and they are not able to express it, especially when they feel that no one in their family can protect them," says Iyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist and director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

"Violence begets violence. The children try to release this built-up energy during sports. They choose violence because it fits with their situation and to boost their sense of power and security."

Osama Darabih, a lean teenager with a strip of black cloth wrapped around his forehead, has been studying kung fu for three years but says he started coming every day after the war.

"These sports are dangerous and there have been injuries and accidents during training," he says as he waits his turn to spar. "But we train well because we love it. It relaxes us and releases our tensions."

More than half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents are under the age of 18, and psychologists fear the coming generation will be snared by the cycle of violence that has afflicted the territory since the 2000 Palestinian uprising.

Samir Zaqut, a psychologist who works with Sarraj, says the children are drawn to violent activities by what they have experienced.

"When these children put their necks or their heads on broken glass or lie on nails they are in danger. But people who face repeated traumas like to take risks and are drawn to danger."

Zaqut fears that by encouraging interest in such activities, the club owners may be feeding into the violence that has convulsed the territory in recent years and scarred its young people.

"Sports are one way of getting a release, but we should not allow it to increase the level of violence," he says. "The children of Gaza have suffered enough."

Israel PM angered over call to defy US on settlers

by Patrick Moser

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday summoned a minister who whipped up a political storm by calling on the government to oppose US demands for a settlement freeze.

Netanyahu told Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon to report to him on Thursday evening, according to Israeli media. The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot said Netanyahu would issue a "severe reprimand."

Yaalon's comments come at an embarrassing time for Netanyahu who has sought to ease tension with the United States and made gestures to Washington over the thorny issue of Israeli settlements in occupied areas.

In statements seen by Israeli media as a strong challenge to Netanyahu from the right-wing of his Likud party, Yaalon said the government should be tougher in responding to US President Barack Obama's call for a freeze of settlement activity.

"I for one am not afraid of the Americans. There are issues on which one should say 'that's enough'," Yaalon said, in statements broadcast on Wednesday night by Channel 2.

He clearly rejected US calls for a freeze of settlement activity, insisting the Jews have a rightful claim to the biblical Land of Israel -- a term used to include the Palestinian territories.

"I believe that Jews have the right to live anywhere in the Land of Israel forever," he added in remarks the television station said were made to a meeting of far-right members of Netanyahu's Likud party on Sunday.

Yaalon, who is also a vice premier, described the Israeli anti-settlement Peace Now group as "a virus," a remark that stirred widespread outrage in Israel.

Netanyahu responded angrily to the statements.

"The prime minister does not accept either the tone or the substance of minister Ayalon's statements. They do not reflect the position of the government," his office said.

Netanyahu has rejected US calls for a total construction freeze in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, insisting new homes need to be built in order to accommodate "natural growth" in the population

But in a gesture to Washington he agreed on Tuesday to curtail settlement activity by not issuing any new construction tenders until early 2010.

The US administration welcomed the announcement as a move in the right direction, but critics said it fell far short of demands for a settlement freeze as construction of homes for settlers is continuing.

Yaalon had also embarrassed the government by touring unauthorized settlement outposts on Monday. He and another three cabinet ministers with him criticized the government's decision to raze such wildcat developments.

Public radio's political commentator Hanan Cristal believes Yaalon, a former military chief of staff, is seeking to build a rightwing group within Likud that would help propel him to the post of defense minister. "In the longer run, he hopes to become prime minister," Cristal said.

Yediot Aharonot quoted an unnamed official in Netanyahu's inner circle as saying the premier is well aware that an "extremist group" is forming within Likud.

"The prime minister intends in earnest to advance a peace initiative, and he is going to have to address this issue with seriousness," the newspaper said.

Peace talks with the Palestinians were revived in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus, but produced few visible results before they ground to a halt again in December last year.

The presence of almost half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, is among the biggest hurdles in the peace process.

The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal. Israel rejects the claim, though it has repeatedly vowed to demolish outposts built without government authorization.

US raps Israel over limit on Palestinian-Americans

By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM – The United States has complained to Israel over rules that keep Palestinian-Americans from entering Israel, officials said Thursday.

A travel update posted by the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem says that for some time, Israel has not permitted Palestinians who also hold American passports to enter through Israel's Ben-Gurion international airport, requiring that they use the Allenby Bridge land crossing from Jordan directly into the West Bank.

Since spring this year, travelers using the Israeli-controlled bridge crossing have had their passports stamped permitting travel only in Palestinian controlled areas, the update said.

Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabin Hadad said there is a general ban on Palestinians entering Israel and the rules are applied regardless of what other nationalities they might also hold.

"It does not matter if they are American, French or British," she told The Associated Press. "If they are residents of the (Palestinian) territories, then we regard them first and foremost as local residents."

She said that the rule has been in force since 2003, and the only recent change was introducing the passport stamp, in place of a separate note which used to be handed to travelers.

Israel clamped tight restrictions on Palestinians seeking to enter its territory following the 2000 outbreak of a Palestinian uprising, with hundreds of attacks in Israel, including dozens of suicide bombings. Palestinians can enter Israel only with special permits.

Already engaged in a public dispute with Israel over construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the U.S. responded harshly to the entry ban at the State Department's daily press briefing on Wednesday.

"We have made it quite known to the Israeli government that we expect all American citizens to be treated the same regardless of their national origin, and these kinds of restrictions we consider unacceptable," spokesman Ian Kelly said. "We have told them that we cannot accept this practice ... we will continue to protest."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor on Thursday confirmed that the U.S. had complained, but he did not elaborate, adding that he was unfamiliar with immigration regulations.

The U.S. Jerusalem consulate Web site warned dual nationals that even if they took a gamble and were allowed to enter though Ben-Gurion airport, they could find themselves barred from returning the same way and unable to use the return portion of their airline ticket.

The consulate advice statement said Palestinian-Americans who found themselves stranded in the West Bank would find the Palestinian authorities powerless to help them.

"Only Israeli liaison offices in the West Bank can assist," it said. "But they rarely will."

Iran lawmakers warn of clash over new government

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad submitted a new Cabinet purged of critics and packed with loyalists and little-known figures, and lawmakers on Thursday warned it could face a challenge from members of his own conservative camp in parliament.

Ahmadinejad is forming his new government while still under a cloud from claims by the pro-reform opposition that his victory in June elections was fraudulent. But he is also under pressure from fellow conservatives, who have long criticized the president for hoarding power by putting close associates with little experience in key posts.

Parliament must approve the new government lineup, setting the stage for a possible fight over the nominees. Mohammad Reza Bahonar, one of parliament's deputy speakers, told state television that Ahmadinejad's list of 18 names was submitted late Wednesday.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani indirectly criticized Ahmadinejad, suggesting his nominees lacked experience and political weight.

"Ministers must have enough experience and expertise, otherwise a huge amount of the country's stamina will waste," he said, according to state radio. "A ministry is not a place for tryouts."

Larijani appeared to focus on the nominee for intelligence minister — Heidar Moslehi, a close Ahmadinejad loyalist — as too inexperienced. "A security official should have a vision" and know how to deal with both security and political issues, Larijani said.

Bahonar also warned that some of the nominees would not be approved.

"Our initial estimation shows some four or five members of the list would not achieve a vote of confidence," he said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

He said the close Ahmadinejad allies named for the posts of health, energy and labor ministers are not as "efficient" as the current ministers holding those posts. For the health ministry, Ahmadinejad has nominated Marzieh Vadi Dastgerdi, one three women he has named — who if approved would be the Islamic Republic's first female ministers.

The parliament will hold a week of discussions on the ministers before voting on each minister separately on Aug. 30.

Six of the nominees are holdovers from Ahmadinejad's previous government, though two of them are being moved to new ministries. Among them is Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who will retain his post.

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, who is close to the elite Revolutionary Guard, has been nominated as the new interior minister, in charge of police. The move could signal an even tougher domestic security stance amid the crackdown on the opposition following the disputed election. The opposition says at least 69 people have been killed in the fierce crackdown by police, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia.

Ahmadinejad also appeared to have purged conservative critics. Gone from the list were four members of the outgoing government — the intelligence, culture, health and labor ministers — who criticized him earlier this month over his attempt to name a close associate, Esfandiar Mashai, as his top vice president.

Mashai was sharply opposed by conservatives because of past comments friendly to Israel, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei forced Ahmadinejad to remove him from the vice presidency.

Ahmadinejad had already fired his intelligence minister, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, soon after the Mashai controversy, raising a storm of criticism from conservative lawmakers and hard-line clerics. His nominee for the post is a close ally, Moslehi.

Another nominee who could draw fire from parliament is Ali Akbar Mehrabian, whom Ahmadinejad is seeking to maintain as industry minister. Mehrabian has been convicted of fraud in an intellectual property rights case — fueling complaints among conservatives that the president rewards loyalty over competence.

For the key oil minister post, Ahmadinejad named the commerce minister from his outgoing government, Masoud Mir Kazemi, a former Revolutionary Guard commander with no experience in the oil sector. Some 80 percent of foreign revenue in Iran, the second largest oil producer in OPEC, comes for oil exports.

The retention of Mottaki as foreign minister suggested Ahmadinejad wants to keep the same face to the outside world — though the main issues of foreign policy like the rivalry with the U.S. and negotiations over the nuclear program are mainly in the hands of the supreme leader, Khamenei.

Other nominees were little known figures.

State television's Web site reported that the defense minister nominee was Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, a deputy defense minister in charge of research and development in the current administration. It also named Morteza Bakhtiari, currently a provincial governor, as the proposed justice minister and Mahdi Ghazanfari, a deputy commerce minister, as the nominee for commerce minister.

The three female nominees appeared to be an attempt by Ahmadinejad to show that his movement seeks to promote women despite its hard-line ideology. Besides Dastjerdi for the health ministry, the other two women were education minister nominee Susan Keshavarz — currently head of the ministry's department of disabled students — and welfare ministry nominee Fatemeh Ajorlu.

If approved, they would be Iran's first female Cabinet ministers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that established rule by hard-line clerics. Iran's only other female minister, Farrokhroo Parsay, served from 1968 to 1977 as minister of education. She was executed on charges of corruption after the revolution.

Polls close and counting begins in Afghanistan

By JASON STRAZIUSO and ROBERT H. REID
Associated Press Writers

KABUL (AP) - Taliban threats appeared to dampen voter turnout in the militant south Thursday when Afghans chose the next president for their deeply troubled country. Insurgents launched scattered rocket, suicide and bomb attacks that closed some polling sites.

After ten hours of voting, including a last-minute, one-hour extension, election workers began to count the millions of ballots cast across the country. Initial results weren't expected until Saturday.

Low turnout in the south would harmPresident Hamid Karzai's re-election chances and boost the standing of his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Turnout in the north appeared to be stronger, a good sign for Abdullah.

International officials have predicted an imperfect election - Afghanistan's second-ever direct presidential vote - but expressed hope that Afghans would accept it as legitimate, a key component of President Barack Obama's war strategy. Taliban militants, though, pledged to disrupt the vote and circulated threats that those who cast ballots will be punished.

A voting official in Kandahar, the south's largest city and the Taliban's spiritual birthplace, said voting appeared to be 40 percent lower than during the country's 2004 presidential election. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to release turnout figures. Associated Press journalists reported low turnouts in Kabul compared with longer lines seen in the 2004 vote.

Militants carried out attacks around the country. Security companies in the capital reported at least five bomb attacks, and Kabul police exchanged fire for more than an hour with a group of armed men; two suicide bombers died in the clash, police said. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that five gunmen were fighting with police.

The tight security across Kabul was relaxed after polls closed, as Afghan troops and police vacated checkpoints.

Karzai, dressed in his traditional purple-and-green-striped robe, voted at a Kabul high school in the morning. He dipped his index finger in indelible ink - a fraud prevention measure - and held it up for the cameras. Presidential palace officials released a rare photo of Karzai's wife casting her vote.

"I request that the Afghan people come out and vote, so through their ballot Afghanistan will be more secure, more peaceful," Karzai said. "Vote. No violence."

Karzai, who has held power since the Taliban was ousted in late 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion, is favored to finish first among 36 official candidates, although a late surge by Abdullah could force a runoff if no one wins more than 50 percent.

The next president will lead a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government. Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan in the last three years, and the U.S. now has more than 60,000 forces in the country close to eight years after the U.S. invasion following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A U.S. service member was killed in a mortar attack in the east Thursday, bringing to at least 33 the number of U.S. troops killed this month.

Karzai, a favorite of the Bush administration, won in 2004 with 55.4 percent of the vote, riding into office on a wave of public optimism. As the U.S. shifted resources to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan fell into steep decline, marked by record opium poppy harvests, deepening government corruption and skyrocketing violence.

The top U.N. official in the country, Kai Eide, acknowledged scattered attacks but said the election "seems to be working well." A U.N. spokesman said there were no early reports of widespread irregularities, though ahead of the vote, the country had been buzzing with rumors of ballot-stuffing, bogus registrations and trafficking in registration cards on behalf of Karzai - allegations his campaign has denied.

Presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost, who had 10 percent support in pre-election polls, said he washed off the supposedly indelible ink and called on authorities to "immediately stop this election."

"This is not an election, this is a comedy," Bashardost said.

Azizullah Lodin, chairman of the Independent Election Commission, denied there were widespread problems with the ink but said officials would investigate.

Militants carried out a string of assaults around the country. In northern Baghlan province, insurgent attacks closed 14 polling sites, and the police chief of Old Baghlan city and several police were killed, said Abdul Malik, the provincial election director.

An AP reporter in southern Helmand province said more than 20 rockets had landed in the capital of Lashkar Gah, including one near a line of voters that killed a child.

A blast at a high school in Kabul serving as a polling center wounded an election monitor and briefly shut down voting, an election observer named Ezatullah said. Abdullah Azizi, a 40-year-old teacher, said he was at Abdul Hai Habibi school when the explosion occurred.

"We don't care about these blasts," Azizi said after voting reopened. "The women were afraid when they heard the explosion, but now I'm going to tell them come here."

Because of Foreign Ministry order that asked news organizations to avoid "broadcasting any incidence of violence" during voting, Afghan officials were reluctant to confirm violence.

At a high school in eastern Kabul, election workers were ready at 7 a.m., but no one was there.

In the Helmand province town of Dahaneh - a former Taliban stronghold until U.S. troops invaded this month - U.S. Marines delivered presidential ballots in two helicopters just after noon.

Voter turnout in the insurgency-plagued Pashtun south is not only crucial to Karzai's chances but also to public acceptance of the results. Karzai is widely expected to run strong among his fellow Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group that also forms the overwhelming majority of the Taliban.

Karzai has sought to ensure his re-election by striking alliances with regional power brokers, naming as a running mate a Tajik strongman and welcoming home notorious Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum.

Abdullah, who is part Tajik, is expected to win much of his votes in the Tajik north, where security is better.

Group finds more unmarked graves in Indian Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India (AP): Rights workers have discovered several unmarked graves containing about 1,500 unidentified bodies in Indian Kashmir, a prominent rights group said Thursday, alleging that some of corpses were likely innocent people killed by government forces.

Researchers from the Association of Parents of Disappeared People, or APDP, says at least eight of the graves held more than one body.

An Indian official said the bodies were likely those of militants killed over the past 20 years in fighting for control of the Himalayan region. But the government has also opened an investigation into such graves.

Separatist groups there are fighting for the Indian-controlled portion's independence from predominantly Hindu India or its merger with mostly Muslim Pakistan.

More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the uprising and the subsequent Indian crackdown.

The association represents relatives of people who have disappeared in the violence.

Last year in a report titled, "Facts Under Ground" APDP had reported finding the unmarked graves of about 1,000 people near Uri, an area near the de facto frontier that divides Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and referred to as Line of Control.

"We have found more graves of about 1,500 people buried as unidentified in three remote districts during our ongoing survey," Pervez Imroz, the group's lawyer, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "We've found that at least eight are mass graves as they contain more than one body."

The latest report from the districts of Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipore is part of the APDP's ongoing survey of the northern parts of Indian Kashmir, which is near the Line of Control and will eventually broaden to the rest of the state.

After last year's revelations, Amnesty International called for an independent probe into the unmarked graves.

On Thursday, Ramesh Gopalakrishnan, a researcher on the London-based rights group's South Asia team, said there had been no "responsible and serious" response on the subject by either the state or federal governments.

Indian authorities had dismissed the earlier revelations but this year the State Human Rights Commission, a government body formed after widespread allegations of human rights abuses by the army, paramilitary and police in the state, sought information on the issue.

"The state government has yet to responded to our notice," said Farooq Ahmed, an official of the commission said Thursday. All the state officials reached by the Associated Press declined to comment on the subject.

However, one senior police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said authorities launched an investigation last year when the revelations were first made. "Hundreds of foreign militants have been killed since the militancy started, and many of them have died in gunbattles on borders. Everyone knows they have been buried as unidentified," he said.

Human rights workers have complained for years that innocent people have disappeared, been killed by government forces in staged gunbattles, and suspected rebels have been arrested and never heard from again.

Rights groups say there have been an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 disappearances since the anti-India rebellion began in 1989.

The government says most of the people who disappeared are Kashmiri youths who crossed into neighboring Pakistan for weapons training.

The state government on Monday said 3,429 people have disappeared from their homes while 110 others disappeared from the custody of government forces in last two decades.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, a region divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed by both.

What Afghan Election Result is Best for the U.S.?

By TONY KARON

The streets of Kabul were deadly quiet as polling began in national elections Thursday. The only people out in numbers were the police, who guarded intersections and stopped the very occasional taxi driver. Wednesday's curious lack of violence had left many ordinary citizens in the capital apprehensive that the Taliban were planning something big for voting day. And the government ban on reporting violence had everyone worried that they wouldn't know what areas to avoid.

And then the whispers began: reports of gunfire across the city; several explosions at polling centers and at road intersections; rocket attacks near polling stations around the country. Even if no more violence occurs today (voting is drawing to a close), the Taliban will have achieved one key objective: cutting the number of people prepared to vote.

That could make a big difference in deciding who will win this crucial election. Washington observers are especially keen to see the results come in. In the last presidential race in 2004, there was no question who the U.S. supported. Hamid Karzai was Washington's man, campaigning as the incumbent in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban election, having been installed by international edict after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Today, however, Karzai epitomizes a political status quo deemed untenable in Washington, because its rampant corruption, cronyism and failure to deliver security and services to the citizenry has enabled a massive Taliban resurgence. "The U.S. priority in Afghanistan today is waging a counterinsurgency war, in which good governance in an important element," says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International studies, who recently visited Afghanistan as part of the team advising U.S. commander General Stanley McChrystal. By the measure of good governance, Karzai has been a failure, and nobody expects much different if he's reelected.

However, unlike in 2004, Karzai this time faces serious electoral challengers - candidates liked and respected by the U.S., and whom many in Kabul believe have been encouraged by Washington to run. While Karzai remains the frontrunner, chances are growing that his opponents could force him to contest a runoff race in October by denying him the 50% plus one vote needed for a first-round victory.

Despite its frustrations with Karzai, however, the U.S. is not pinning its hopes on the incumbent being replaced. "Although the election is very important, It would be a mistake to put too much importance on its outcome," suggests Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. "The question of which personality is president may be less important than the structure of governance in Afghanistan. If Karzai were to lose, the next incumbent would face many of the same pressures that Karzai has faced. There are serious structural problem of splintered power and authority, and central government weakness, that would affect whomever was president. Unless the United States uses the leverage we have to change the incentives for malign behavior, a different head of state is likely to face many of the same problems that this head of state does. It will take a lot more than this election to shape the sort of governance we need to make a success of the war."

Washington's priority is a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at halting the Taliban's momentum by the end of next year, by providing security, the rule of law and economic development in communities where the insurgents currently hold sway. To that end, having Afghans participate at all in the election process could help legitimize the new political order in Afghanistan - which may be precisely why the Taliban is waging a campaign of violence and intimidation to keep people away from the polls on Thursday. For the Taliban, the optimal outcome is a low turnout producing a new wave of turmoil that further undermines the legitimacy of the government in Kabul.

Creating security conditions to enable more Afghans to vote has been the tactical priority of U.S. efforts for much of this year, deflecting from undertaking the development and reconstruction work deemed critical to the success of the counterinsurgency campaign. And even then, with the Taliban posing an active threat to polling in almost half of the country, there's a real danger of a turnout too low to legitimize the election. "If it's under 30%, there will be appeals by almost everyone to say that this is not a legitimate election, and that we'll need another election," Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who has written two authoritative books on the Taliban, told the Council on Foreign Relations this week. "The other problem is that there are going to be massive charges of rigging no matter who wins. If Karzai wins, the opposition is going to accuse him of rigging the election. If Karzai does not do well, he'll say his voters in the south, where the Taliban insurgency is strong, were not allowed to come out and vote."

Cordesman warns that those looking to cry foul already have plenty of material to work with. "Karzai has spent months trying to exploit traditional ties and allegiances by buying bloc votes from ex-warlords, local leaders, and power brokers," Cordesman noted in emailed comments. "The joke is that he has promised governorships to three times more such leaders than there are provinces. The reality is that Karzai's top running mates are the equivalent of warlords, and he [has] done everything possible to buy the election long before the vote will actually occur. As a result, the real question is how many Afghan voters will actually stay bought when they go to the polls."

Whatever its outcome, the election is likely to leave the U.S. facing a tricky political environment for its counterinsurgency strategy. "No one doubts that any future Karzai government will still be tied to corruption, favoritism, and power brokers - with links to organized crime, narcotics trafficking, and officials who sometimes have links to the Taliban," says Cordesman. On the other hand, "If Abdullah should win, a man who has never governed or administered any significant body will take over. Just as would be the case with Karzai, Abdullah will then be faced with ministries that lack capacity, are corrupt, that do not serve most Afghans outside Kabul with any competence, and that will still control virtually all state funds... There will be no meaningful government services in far too many areas. There will be no Afghan source of security. Instead, there will be a corrupt and ineffective police, and no courts and jails."

Regardless of the result, then, the post-election challenge facing the U.S. and its allies will be to use the leverage offered by the fact that Afghanistan's central government remains almost entirely dependent on Western troops and financial assistance to create effective local and provincial government, and strengthen the ministries of the central government, fighting corruption and delivering the services that Afghans desperately need. The outcome of the election will simply signal just how difficult meeting that challenge will be.

Russia admits militants remain strong in Caucasus

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV,Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – Militants remain a strong challenge to Russian authorities in the North Caucasus, the president said Wednesday _ reversing months of Kremlin assurances that stability was returning to the restive southern region.

President Dmitry Medvedev called for new measures to "radically" improve the situation in the region, where militants have fought two separatist wars in Chechnya since 1994 and still mount regular attacks against law enforcement in neighboring regions.

"Some time ago, we got an impression that the situation regarding terrorism in the Caucasus has significantly improved," Medvedev said at a meeting with security officials in the southern city of Stavropol. "Regrettably, recent events have shown it's not the case."

On Monday, militants staged the region's worst attack in years, ramming a truck through the Nazran police headquarters in Ingushetia and detonating a massive amount of explosives. The death toll from the attack reached 25 on Wednesday, after four more bodies were removed from the wreckage. Of the more than 160 people injured, 70 are still hospitalized, Ingushetia's deputy leader Ruslan Tsechoyev said.

The bombing unraveled Kremlin claims that it has managed to bring calm and prosperity to the impoverished region's patchwork of ethnic groups, clans and religions.

It also stoked new fears that Ingushetia, located west of Chechnya, has become the region's main battleground. An officer of the Federal Security Service was shot to death Wednesday in his car near Nazran, according to the federal prosecutor's Investigative Committee in Ingushetia.

Medvedev called Wednesday for tougher measures to fight militants.

"We must continue to fight them without ceremony and liquidate them without any emotions or hesitation, or we won't succeed," Medvedev said.

He also warned officials they could lose their jobs if they failed to properly protect their men. Medvedev had fired Ingushetia's top police official after Monday's attack, saying he failed to take safety precautions that could have reduced the number of victims.

"People have been killed because of the absence of elementary safety means," Medvedev said, without elaborating on what safety measures might not have been followed. "It's unforgivable, it's simply a crime."

While Chechnya has become more stable after the two separatist wars since 1994, violence has risen in Chechnya's neighboring provinces of Ingushetia and Dagestan.

A recent suicide bombing badly wounded Ingushetia's Kremlin-appointed leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who blamed militants that regularly battle security forces in the forests along the mountainous Chechen border.

In Dagestan, which lies east of Chechnya, police clashed with militants Wednesday, killing three of them, said spokesman Mark Tolchinsky of the region's Interior Ministry branch.

How The Taliban Are Taking Control Of Kunduz

Six years ago, German soldiers came to Afghanistan's Kunduz province to carry out reconstruction work. Now they are engaged in a bitter struggle with the resurgent Taliban, who are trying to sabotage Thursday's presidential election. Many local people no longer believe the Europeans can help them.

The war in Afghanistan now revolves around men like Khanzada Gul. The West is fighting for him, and so are German soldiers. They want to prevent people like Gul from changing sides and joining the enemy - the Taliban.

Gul, who is dressed in jeans and a striped T-shirt, is leaning against a railing in front of the city of Kunduz's only ice cream parlor, which is on the same street as the main bazaar. The 26-year-old's face is clean-shaven and his hair hangs over his forehead in carefully gelled curls.

Until recently, Gul was earning a good living and could still afford the stylish casual jeans he is wearing. He was the security chief for an orphanage in Kunduz operated by a Korean aid organization.

But then, four weeks ago, Gul's life was turned upside down. As he was driving home to the village of Chawkandi, 20 minutes by car from downtown Kunduz, Gul was stopped by half a dozen men on motorcycles. They were members of the Taliban and warned him that they would kill if he didn't quit his job with the foreigners.

He recognized residents of his village among the group of Taliban, men his age and younger. A few days later, Gul was stopped again. This time the Taliban destroyed the music cassette in his car stereo. "This is your last chance," they said threateningly.

Gul was so afraid that he quit his job. But now he doesn't know what to do with himself, and he spends most of his time walking around aimlessly in the city. "Anyone who works for the foreigners is punished with death, and the same applies to those working for the government. How am I supposed to make a living?" he asks, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe I'll join the Taliban soon."

An Afghan Spa

Part of the reason the Germans came to the northern Afghan province of Kunduz six years ago was to help men like Gul. They wanted to help the Afghan population rebuild their shattered country. The Taliban was far away, and the conditions were right for the mission.

At first, many soldiers nicknamed their base in northern Afghanistan "Bad Kunduz," a play on the names of German spa resorts like Bad Munstereifel or Bad Wimpfen ("Bad" being the German word for bath). The location, in a valley between spurs of the Hindu Kush mountain range, is unusually lush for Afghanistan. And it was a quiet place, back then at least, and the war was far away.

Today the region has turned into a battleground, and the Germans, who never wanted to get involved in combat, are in the thick of it. The Taliban have returned, and they are gaining more and more support among the local population. Gul could be the next to join them.

Ironically, it is in Kunduz, where the Germans set out to prove - to themselves and to the rest of the world - that the war against terror could also be conducted with peaceful means, that fierce battles are now being waged. The province has become a dangerous place for German soldiers.

Shooting Back

The situation in northeastern Afghanistan has deteriorated dramatically in the last two years. "We are involved in gun battles every other day. We are being shot at and we are shooting back, and we are killing a few of them," says Sergeant Major Wolfgang Marx, a spokesman for the German military, the Bundeswehr, in Kunduz.

German soldiers have also begun deploying heavier weapons. They go into battle in Marder ("marten") infantry fighting vehicles or request air support from the allied bombers thundering through the skies above Kunduz. The Bundeswehr must now come to terms with a fact that Germans have previously found difficult to accept: Winning the war in Afghanistan requires engaging in active combat.

The upcoming elections in Germany and Afghanistan serve as a new source of motivation for the enemies of Afghanistan's young democracy. This Thursday, an estimated 15 million registered Afghan voters will elect a new president, in a vote that will determine whether the incumbent, the pro-Western President Hamid Karzai, will remain in office for another five-year term.

The Taliban also have Germany's parliamentary election in mind as they seek to escalate the situation in Kunduz, the province where German troops are stationed. They hope that a rising death toll will rob the Bundeswehr of political support at home.

When Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, a member of Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), talks about Afghanistan, it usually sounds as if he were discussing a potential candidate for European Union membership. He consistently portrays the situation as everything but dramatic and paints the current mission as a success. But the situation on the ground in Kunduz tells a different story.

'I Would Crush Him with My Own Hands'

Abdul Razak Yakubi, the police chief in Kunduz, is feeling extremely upset on this particular morning. A suicide bomber has just blown himself up on the road heading south out of the city. Aside from the suicide bomber, no one was killed. But Razak, who is known in the region as "General Razak," knows that the incident will only spark the usual talk, namely that he doesn't have the city and the surrounding province under control. The problem is that the gossip is true.

Razak has stopped counting how often this year his mornings have begun with attacks. The brawny police chief, with his carefully parted hair, always seems slightly tired, yawning frequently and closing his eyes while on the telephone, as if he were about to doze off.

"If we ever caught one of the Taliban beforehand, I would crush him with my own hands," he says, clenching his fists. Razak is about to leave on a trip to Chahar Dara. It's the district where the Taliban are the strongest, a region of small villages over which the Afghan government and the Bundeswehr have lost control. Razak has lost more than two dozen police officers to booby traps and attacks in Chahar Dara in recent months.

Eight dark-green Ford Explorers pull up to the police station in Kunduz, each carrying six police officers armed with machine guns and a rocket launcher. Razak puts on his Ray-Ban sunglasses and his cap.

He gets into the third vehicle, holding his radio to his mouth. "Drive in the middle of the road," he shouts, "the bombs are always along the edge." He instructs the men at the rear to open fire on any car they see approaching the convoy at high speed. "Shooting first," says Razak, "often saves lives." He speaks from experience.

A Reign of Fear

The town of Chahar Dara is 20 minutes from Kunduz. The men at the market wear long beards and the traditional Afghan outfit: baggy trousers and a loose shirt. The few women out in public are dressed in burqas and are always accompanied by a man. To avoid possible punishment for engaging in "un-Islamic behavior," most citizens already abide by the dictates of the Taliban.

Within the past year, the Taliban here have grown in strength from a small group to a force to be reckoned with, imposing a reign of fear over entire communities. They are quick to discover which residents work for the government or foreign aid organizations. This has prompted local employees of international organizations to delete contact details from their mobile phones, travel in unmarked vehicles and leave any documents tying them to foreign organizations at home before traveling to the district.

Teachers who teach girls run the risk of having their noses and ears cut off. Sufi Mohammed, a farmer, was shot to death for drinking tea with foreign soldiers. The Taliban in Chahar Dara have announced that they will cut off all fingers stained with the indelible ink used to prevent multiple voting in the presidential election.

In the night before July 19, the Afghan army, together with police units and 300 German soldiers, launched operation "Adler" ("Eagle") in Chahar Dara. The combined force of 1,200 men drove the Taliban out of the town and conducted house-by-house searches.

Now the German troops are gone, and the Afghan army has also withdrawn. The Taliban are waiting in the surrounding area, planning their return.

Waiting for Attacks

"We do what we can," says Razak, getting out of his SUV. He maintains three small outposts in Chahar Dara district, each manned with 10 police officers and 10 soldiers. The men saddled with this dangerous job stand at attention in the scorching heat, on a small hill that rises above the surrounding rice fields, as they greet their commander. They are wearing sandals and ragged uniforms, and most of their weapons seem older than they are.

Mohammed Ibrahim, 40, the commander of one of the three small outposts, speaks quietly to prevent Razak from hearing him. "All we can do is wait for attacks," he says. "If we're lucky, we can defend our lives." He and his men have only one hope: to be relieved soon.

As improbable as it seems, Razak and his men are the hope of the West and of the Bundeswehr. The German soldiers will only withdraw from the Hindu Kush region once Afghan forces are strong enough to keep the Taliban under control.

Both the Afghan police and army are still a long way from being ready to take over from the Germans. In the last two years, the government in Kabul has slashed Razak's "tashkil," or personnel list. Some 500 police officers were sent to other regions of Afghanistan, forcing Razak and his men to abandon many areas in the Kunduz region, leaving them to the Taliban.

'German Mothers Will Have to Send More Coffins for Their Sons'

Mullah Salam, the leader of the Taliban in Kunduz, is the Germans' main adversary. Salam is about 40, has medium-length brown hair and usually wears a shiny embroidered cap on his head. He also has a large potbelly.

An intelligence photo depicts the Taliban member with an almost mild expression on his face, sitting cross-legged on a mat with a mobile telephone in his hand. However, to avoid being tracked he rarely makes calls and he travels in various disguises. Even in Kunduz, he never sleeps in the same house for two nights in a row.

For the Taliban, Kunduz is the strategic heart of the north. About 40 percent of the province's inhabitants are Pashtuns, the ethnic group from which the Taliban recruits most of its members. Fighters can go into hiding easily and are able to turn to old supporters in Kunduz. They are tightly organized into small units, which are activated for individual missions. The Germans are their preferred targets.

Salam's forces have fired rockets at the German camp in Kunduz many times. The Bundeswehr holds Salam responsible for the roadside bombs used against their convoys and for the murders of three German soldiers on the city's market square on May 19, 2007, and for all other subsequent attacks. Most recently, on June 23, three German soldiers drowned when their armored vehicle crashed into a water ditch after an attack. Further bloody attacks are planned to coincide with this week's election.

Salam's strong connections to the Taliban Shura council in the Pakistani city of Quetta, the insurgents' most senior decision-making body, make him a particularly insidious threat. Only this spring, Mullah Baradar, the second-in-command in the Taliban hierarchy next to Mullah Omar, who has gone almost completely underground, issued a decree code-named "Nusrat," or "The Victory." In the directive, Baradar ordered his commanders to ramp up their activities in northern Afghanistan, including Kunduz.

It is now up to Mullah Salam to implement Baradar's plan and make life a living hell for the Germans. "The Germans, together with the Afghan army, have not managed to gain the upper hand over our fighters," Qari Bashir, one of Salam's commanders, scoffs in a telephone conversation. "We have far fewer men, but we are more courageous. German mothers will have to send many more coffins to Afghanistan for their sons."

A Reputation for Being Cowards

Before May 19, 2007, the day on which a suicide bomber targeted and killed three Bundeswehr soldiers who were at the bazaar to buy refrigerators, the Germans felt exceedingly comfortable in Kunduz.

The soldiers had long joked about serving in what they called "Bad Kunduz," because nothing resembling war was happening there. German paratroopers drove out of their camp smiling and waving, met with the village elders, known as maliks, and drank large quantities of green tea. They also repaired bridges and dug wells.

This cozy prologue to the current situation is probably the reason that the Germans have a reputation among many Afghans for being cowards who shirk real combat. The governor of Kunduz, Mohammed Omar, shares that opinion.

Omar is sitting on a red floor cushion. He wears his dark-blonde beard shortly trimmed, and the shirt under his vest is freshly ironed. But his eyes are red from crying: His brother, a local police chief, was killed the night before.

The Taliban attacked his police station to free supporters being held there. The police chief and his bodyguard were killed, a police officer was seriously injured, and the Taliban supporters were freed. "We will find the culprits," the governor says quietly.

Mohammed Omar, known locally simply as Engineer Omar, has nothing good to say about the Bundeswehr soldiers today. In fact, he is deeply disappointed. He complains that the Germans are not willing to seriously challenge the Taliban. "The last operation against the Taliban in Chahar Dara was unsuccessful, because the soldiers were hardly prepared to stage air strikes. They are overly cautious, and they don't even get out of their vehicles. They should leave, and the Americans should replace them. The Americans would finally provide security."

Guests enter the governor's house to offer their condolences. They kiss Omar's hands, mumble a few words and sit down on the floor cushions without saying anything. "The anti-government resistance in Kunduz is controlled from Pakistan," says Omar. At first, he says, only a few local residents supported the movement, but in the run-up to the election, Pakistan's intelligence service has activated its sources in Kunduz. "What kind of a response do the Germans have to that?"

The governor is beginning to sound agitated. A man hands him an old photo of him and his brother. His eyes fill with tears. He excuses himself, saying that it is time for him to pray.

'If I Don't Shoot, They'll Kill My Soldiers'

"Sure, Kunduz has changed," says Colonel Georg Klein. He is sitting in his office at the reconstruction team headquarters in Kunduz, adjusting his glasses. Kunduz has also changed him, says Klein. "I really don't want to shoot at other people. They're people, too, after all. But if I don't shoot, they'll kill my soldiers." His words reflect the logic of the war.

Four soldiers have died since Klein became the commander of German forces in Kunduz. He is deeply troubled by the deaths, he says, but adds that it is now time to "look forward." The people of Kunduz deserve the Germans' help, he says, noting that they are proud and hardworking, and are making a genuine effort to get back on their feet.

Klein sips his tea. He knows that the coming years will be even more difficult than the past few years. He wants to see the peaceful conditions of the past return to the region, and yet he finds himself caught in the midst of the violence of the present.

He says that the Germans have already chalked up some successes in Afghanistan. Countless roads and bridges have been built in Kunduz, and 1,800 households now have access to clean water. In the troubled Chahar Dara district, says Klein, employees of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) have built a tomato paste factory, which now sells its entire production to Kabul's only five-star hotel, the Serena.

Germans, he says, have financed an auto repair academy and are helping beekeepers establish a livelihood. Why doesn't anyone mention these achievements, Klein asks?

Progress is the Germans' most powerful weapon, which is why the Taliban detest the reconstruction efforts. Afghans want electricity and roads but, most of all, they want to survive.

Bad for Business

The police patrol the streets by day, and the Taliban are in control at night, says Muallim Kabir, an elderly man with a long white beard and a mustard-colored turban. He is standing in a clothing shop in downtown Kunduz, examining a blue-green silk chapan coat.

Prices have dropped now that the security situation in Kunduz has deteriorated. Less security is bad for business. Instead of the 3,500 afghanis (about €50, or $71) the coat would normally cost, Kabir offers the shopkeeper 2,500 afghanis. In the end he buys the coat for 2,800 afghanis.

Kabir is a Pashtun and a member of several village councils. He says that he plans to bide his time to see who gains the upper hand - the government and the foreign troops, or the Taliban. In the end, he says, he doesn't want to be on the side of the losers. In a country like Afghanistan, that's a dangerous place to be.

Venezuela ends fuel agreement with Colombia

Venezuela will not renew an agreement to provide fuel to Colombia, Venezuela's Energy and Petroleum Minister, Rafael Ramirez, announced on Wednesday.

The one-year agreement, under which Caracas provided fuel to Bogota on preferential terms, expired on Tuesday, and "there is no reason to renew it," Ramirez told press after a meeting with the Venezuela United Socialist Party in Tachira, a western Venezuela state bordering Colombia.

He said Venezuelan authorities were implementing rigorous security measures to prevent fuel contraband to Colombia, including deploying 120 special prosecution investigators and military officials.

The decision not to renew the agreement is part of a freeze on diplomatic and trade ties with Colombia ordered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on July 28. Despite the freeze, Venezuela's ambassador to Bogota, Gustavo Marquez, who was withdrawn by Chavezas part of the freeze, returned to his position on Aug. 9.

Chavez ordered the freeze after Colombia's decision to allow U.S. military bases in Colombia and the seizure of Venezuelan weapons at a Colombian guerrilla base.

Ahmadinejad submits list of ministers to parliament

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has submitted a list of his new cabinet ministers to the Majlis (Parliament), Iran's English-language satellite channel Press TV reported on Thursday.

The list of 21-member cabinet, submitted late on Wednesday, will be examined by parliament members from Aug. 23, and a confidence vote will be held on Aug. 30, according to the report.

According to the list, Ahmadinejad has kept Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in his post and proposed Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar as the new interior minister.

Ahmad Vahidi, who has served as deputy defense minister and also head of the political, defense and security commission of the Expediency Council, is the nominee for defense minister.

Masoud Mir-Kazemi, Iran's commerce minister, was nominated to head the country's Oil Ministry.

The list also includes three women -- Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, Fatemeh Ajorlou and Sousan Keshavarz -- to head the ministries of health, social welfare and education respectively.

Vice Majlis Speaker Mohammad-Reza Bahonar said on Thursday it was likely that several of the ministers would be rejected by the assembly, according to Press TV.

"Some of my colleagues and I ... believe that close to five ministers proposed by Mr. Ahmadinejad will not receive a vote of confidence," Bahonar was quoted as saying, without giving the names of the ministers.

In case some candidates are rejected by the Majlis, the president must introduce new nominees within 15 days.

The long wait

Persecuted and oppressed in Burma, Rohingya Muslims are fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. Starving and stateless, they live in squalid makeshift camps. And yet, as Cyrus Shahrad discovers, they have not lost hope.

It is dawn at the Kutupalong refugee camp and men, women and children are filing into a hastily erected bamboo structure resembling a covered cattle market. On all sides are tables manned by volunteer doctors armed with polio drops and measles injections; once treated, children are handed vaccination cards and have their ears blackened with marker pens. At the exit, entrepreneurial refu­gees wait with ice-cream bikes rented for the occasion, selling colored ice lollies to those with spare change.

Not all who join the queue know what they are lining up for, but they are reassured when they see the Médecins Sans Frontières workers in sunhats and stained T-shirts. The Muslim Rohingya people have fled a culture of oppression in Burma to find themselves starving and stateless in Bangla­desh, and the kindness of strangers isn't something they are in a position to turn down.

The discrimination and violence against the Rohingyas began in Burma's western Rakhine State following the 1962 coup, when the military junta that still reigns first seized power. Marriages became subject to costly and time-consuming applications for licenses; similar permissions were required for travel, so that many Rohingyas never left their villages until the day they fled their country. Land rights were revoked, leaving farmers helpless as government officials occupied fields and repossessed livestock. Boys and men were routinely rounded up and forced to work on government projects from construction to jungle clearing; many of the mothers, wives and daughters they left behind were raped by soldiers. Those who refused to work were sent to prison, where they were beaten or tortured.

Many thousands of Rohingyas fled to Bangla­desh over the decades, but in 1991 the trickle of Burmese Muslims crossing the Naf River swelled and flooded a pencil-thin peninsula with more than 250,000 refugees. The Bangladeshi government registered newcomers at 20 camps in the hills surrounding Cox's Bazar - a Dubai-style pleasure palace teeming with five-star hotels and upmarket beach cafés - where they remained while the two nations wrestled over the fine print of a repatriation agreement. Between 1992 and 1997, 236,000 refugees were sent back to Burma, the vast majority against their will. Of the 20 camps, Kutupalong is one of only two that remain, both operated by the UNHCR. Between them, they hold 26,000 Rohingyas who are registered as residing in Bangladesh.

The unofficial number of refugees is, however, far higher thanks to a second wave of border crossings in the past two years. It is hard to put even a rough figure on the scale of the influx: Bangladesh's refusal to accede to the 1951 Refugee Convention gives it no legal obligation to guarantee the status or safety of refugees, and no Rohingya has been formally registered since 1992. Moreover, the similarities between the Rohin­gyas and the Chittagonian-speaking natives of Cox's Bazar make it hard to distinguish asylum-seekers from local people. But the numbers are growing. The official Kutupalong camp is now surrounded by a nebulous shanty town, whose mud and thatch homes make the original wicker and galvanized steel houses look luxurious by comparison. The 200 refugees arriving at the camp in 2007 were followed by 2,000 more in 2008; by March 2009, more than 20,000 unofficial settlers were ranged around Kutupalong, and hundreds more are turning up every week.

Conservative estimates now put the total number of Rohingyas in Bangladesh back at around 250,000. This is a grave problem for the world's eighth most densely populated country, in which roughly a quarter of the people live in extreme poverty. In May, the Bangladeshi foreign minister traveled to Burma to begin rewording a repatriation deal proposed by the military government in late 2008, but failed to secure formal assurances that those resettled would be treated any better than before.

Meanwhile, the squalor at Kutupalong deepens. The open doorways of the low-slung mud huts offer glimpses of emaciated old men collapsed corpse-like in corners, or women rocking wailing babies in makeshift hammocks. An elderly man approaches with his young son. The boy is weeping: his arm is badly swollen, his lip bloodied, and one eyebrow is opened in an angry cut peppered with grit. "He was out collecting firewood this morning when a group of men from the village attacked him," the father says. "Others just watched."

Sarah, an MSF worker from Somerset, confirms that mobs of locals are now frequently attacking refugees. "It's not hard to see why: these people are living on government land, creating cultural tensions and draining resources in an already poor community. They are rejected by Burma and ignored by Bangladesh, and every time they stand up for themselves they get pushed back down."

Every day refugees arrive with severe disabilities that have gone untreated for years. Eleven-year-old Mahabieh rarely leaves her father's hut due to a tumor that has swollen one side of her face to the size of a football. Thirty-year-old Fir Ahamad is so incapacitated by a muscle-wasting disease that his elder brother Noor carries him slung over his shoulder like a sack. "In Burma I worked as a forced laborer," he says, "and every time I fell down they beat me."

For the MSF doctors, working in collaboration with Unicef, such individual ailments must take a back seat to the wider threat of humanitarian disaster. Space is now so short at Kutupalong that newcomers are being forced to erect flimsy shacks on what is essentially floodplain. Even more worrying is the water supply; the unofficial refugees are drinking from 12 hand-drawn bucket wells in which the water was milky with stagnation and chronically high in bacteria long before the monsoon began to wash human waste down the hill. "Right now the clinic is dealing mainly with malnutrition, skin diseases and respiratory infections," says Sarah, "but if the water supplies are contaminated we're likely to see a huge surge in sickness and mortality that we're going to struggle to cope with."

The Bangladeshi government constantly monitors those working to help the Rohingya people, determined to prevent too rosy a picture of refugee life being painted, lest it encourage others to cross the border. Yet many are ready to risk death to escape living under the Burmese regime. "In Burma we were less than animals," says Juhura Begum. "We were like ghosts, living lives that had already ended. At least here we can act like human beings and go about our business with a small measure of freedom."

Kamal Hussein, 35, is forced to hobble around on a wooden crutch, one leg shattered in a beating and trailing uselessly in the dust, but he says that life here is a "paradise" thanks to his new-found freedom to pray at a handful of improvised mosques.

Hossein Hag, who watched his business collapse due to travel restrictions inside Burma, feels a similar sense of hope. "I used to dream of escaping poverty by making a success of my business," he says. "Now I know there are worse things than poverty, and more important things than financial success. In Burma we lived constantly in the shadow of death. Bangladesh feels like a place where life can begin again."

Turnout appears low as Afghans vote for president

By JASON STRAZIUSO and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writers

KABUL – Taliban threats kept voter turnout low in the capital and the militant south Thursday as Afghans chose the next president for their deeply troubled country. Militants launched scattered rocket and bomb attacks but no major assaults.

Turnout, particularly in the violent south, will be key to the vote's success in the country's second direct presidential election. Taliban militants have pledged to disrupt the vote and circulated threats that those who cast ballots will be punished.

International officials have predicted an imperfect election, but expressed hope that Afghans would accept it as legitimate — a key component of President Barack Obama's war strategy.

An Associated Press reporter who visited six polling centers in Kabul said he saw no lines at any of them. An AP reporter in Kandahar, the south's largest city and the Taliban spiritual birthplace, also said he saw few voters.

Scattered reports of violence trickled in from around the country, including a rocket that landed near voters in Helmand and an explosion at a voting site in Kabul. Security companies in the capital reported at least five blasts.

President Hamid Karzai, dressed in his traditional purple and green striped robe, voted at 7 a.m. at a Kabul high school. He dipped his index finger in indelible ink — a fraud prevention measure — and held it up for the cameras.

"I request that the Afghan people come out and vote, so through their ballot Afghanistan will be more secure, more peaceful," Karzai said. "Vote. No violence."

Karzai, who has held power since the Taliban was ousted in late 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion, is favored to finish first among 36 official candidates, although a late surge by former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah could force a runoff if no one wins more than 50 percent.

Preliminary results were expected to be announced in Kabul on Saturday.

U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique said there were no early reports of widespread irregularities, though there had been a number of attacks in the south and east. However, presidential candidate Ramazan Bashardost, who had 10 percent support in pre-election polls, said he washed off the ink that is supposed to prevent double voting and called on authorities to "immediately stop this election."

"This is not an election, this is a comedy," Bashardost said.

Militants carried out a string of minor assaults in the early hours.

An AP reporter in southern Helmand province said more than 20 rockets had landed in the capital of Lashkar Gah, including one that landed near a line of voters and killed a child.

A blast at a high school in Kabul serving as a polling center wounded an election monitor and briefly shut down voting, an election observer named Ezatullah said. Abdullah Azizi, a 40-year-old teacher, said he was at Abdul Hai Habibi school when the explosion occurred.

"We don't care about these blasts. It's just people who want to sabotage the place," Habibi said after voting reopened. "My wife, my mother and father are going to come now. The women were afraid when they heard the explosion, but now I'm going to tell them come here."

The Foreign Ministry asked news organizations to avoid "broadcasting any incidence of violence" during voting hours "to ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people." Because of that order, Afghan officials were reluctant to confirm violence reports.

At a high school in eastern Kabul, election workers were ready at 7 a.m., but no one was there. A 30-year-old shopkeeper whose store is about 100 yards (meters) away said he didn't see the point. "I am not voting. It won't change anything in our country," said Mohammad Tahir, 30.

Long lines of voters showed up at the polls in the more peaceful north, a turnout that could boost Abdullah's chances, especially if the country's ethnic Pashtuns in the south don't vote.

Some voters in the capital wanted to assess the security before voting.

"Yes, we are going to vote," Abdul Rahman, 35, said as he stood 50 yards (meters) outside one polling center. He and his friends were waiting to see people vote safely before casting ballots. "If anything happens to the polling center, we don't want to be too close to it."

The next president will lead a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government. Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan the last three years, and the U.S. now has more than 60,000 forces in the country close to eight years after the U.S. invasion following the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001.

Karzai, a favorite of the Bush administration, won in 2004 with 55.4 percent of the vote, riding into office on a wave of public optimism after decades of war and ruinous Taliban rule. As the U.S. shifted resources to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan fell into steep decline, marked by record opium poppy harvests, deepening government corruption and skyrocketing violence.

Karzai has sought to ensure his re-election by striking alliances with regional power brokers, naming as a running mate a Tajik strongman whom he once fired as defense minister and welcoming home notorious Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, allegedly responsible in the deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners early in the Afghan war.

Voter turnout — especially in the insurgency-plagued Pashtun south — is likely to be crucial not only to Karzai's chances but also to public acceptance of the results. Karzai is widely expected to run strong among his fellow Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group which also forms the overwhelming majority of the Taliban.

Abdullah, son of a Pashtun father and a Tajik mother, is expected to win much of his votes in the Tajik north, where security is better.

One fear is that Abdullah's followers may charge fraud and take to the streets if Karzai claims a first-round victory without a strong southern turnout.

The country has been rife with rumors of ballot stuffing, bogus registrations and trafficking in registration cards on behalf of the incumbent, allegations his campaign has denied.