KABUL: Afghan authorities imposed a partial lockdown on the capital Thursday, banning trucks from the city´s streets in a bid to prevent suicide bombings ahead of presidential elections on Saturday.
The election is at high risk of violence and the Taliban have already unleashed a slew of suicide attacks across Afghanistan targeting campaign offices, rallies and other election-related targets.
A truck bombing in Kabul on September 5 killed at least 12 people. The interior ministry said in a statement that security forces were beefing up their presence at checkpoints into the city and would turn trucks back. “The Afghan police forces are manning the entry gates, and are ordered to prevent the entry of trucks into Kabul from today 5:00 pm (1230 GMT),” the statement read. “Also, the entry of mini-trucks is banned in the city until the end of the elections.
The move comes the same day as the Taliban issued a statement reiterating previous threats that anyone voting was at risk. The Taliban “intend to disrupt this fake process of the American invaders and their few servile slaves by attacking all security personnel... and by targeting (polling) offices and centers,” the insurgents said. They went on to warn Afghans “to stay away from polling stations on election day and not throw themselves into danger”.
Truck bombs are a constant danger in Afghanistan and carry an explosive yield far greater than a car bomb. In May 2017, a massive truck bomb exploded near the German embassy, killing more than 150 people and wounding hundreds more.
WHO welcomes Taliban decision to lift ban on health workers: The World Health Organization on Thursday welcomed a Taliban decision to lift a months-long ban on health workers operating in insurgent-controlled parts of Afghanistan. Taliban officials had in April barred the WHO and the International Committee of the Red Cross, accusing the groups of “suspicious activities”.
The ban was seen as particularly concerning because Afghanistan is one of only a tiny number of countries where polio still exists. According to the WHO, 16 children have been infected by the paralysing virus so far this year. “We welcome this announcement as a step in the right direction and, with partners, will start health facility-based campaigns in the previously banned areas,” Richard Peeperkorn, an Afghanistan representative for the WHO, said a day after the Taliban announced it was lifting the ban. “However, we are concerned that following this long pause in vaccination, more children have become vulnerable to poliovirus, and we will see more Afghan children paralysed”. The insurgents lifted the ban against the ICRC earlier this month. Polio immunisation is compulsory in Afghanistan, but distrust of vaccines is rife and the programmes are difficult to enforce, particularly in rural regions. Militants and religious leaders often tell communities that vaccines are a Western conspiracy aiming to sterilise Muslim children, or that such programmes are an elaborate cover for Western or Afghan government spies.
“The polio vaccine campaign promoted by WHO can no longer be administered from home to home and mosque to mosque and must only operate from health clinics,” the Taliban said in its statement announcing the end of the ban.
