KABUL: An Afghan election watchdog ordered ballots from more than 200 polling stations to be invalidated on Monday after an inquiry concluded there had been rigging on those polling stations.Investigations into fraud in Afghanistan's elections have cut President Hamid Karzai's share of the vote to 48 percent, below the threshold for outright victory, a US election monitor said on Monday.Democracy International said figures released by Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) showed that almost 1.3 million votes cast in the August 20 poll were invalid, cutting Karzai's share of the vote from about 55 percent in the preliminary result.Following investigations into alleged fraud, the vote for Karzai's main rival Abdullah Abdullah rose to almost 32 percent, from the 28 percent he won according to official preliminary results, Democracy International said.
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.
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