Friday, August 21, 2009 KABUL: President Hamid Karzai's campaign manager claimed victory on Friday in the country's presidential election, saying preliminary results showed there would be no need for a second round run-off. "Initial results show that the president has got a majority," Deen Mohammad told foreign news agency, although he said it was the duty of the election commission to announce the official results. "We will not got to a second round. We have got a majority." Mohammad said the estimate of victory was based on reports from nearly 29,000 monitors the campaign had at polling stations throughout the country. However, a spokesman for his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah, dismissed the claim. Official preliminary results are not due for two weeks, but counting began immediately after polls closed on Thursday, and the 6,200 polling stations are required to post their results as they tabulate them. Polls conducted before the election showed Karzai in the lead but suggested he might be headed for a run-off against Abdullah, a former foreign minister with strong support in the north.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments