Not Easy Bringing Democracy - Always some Islamonazi wants to stop you.

Militants Kill Afghans Carrying Voter IDs

By DANIEL COONEY

SHOMALI PLAINS, Afghanistan (AP) - Militants killed seven Afghans carrying voter ID cards, while hundreds of rockets and other weapons were found Wednesday buried in the desert near Kabul, raising fears of attacks on the capital with landmark elections just days away.

NATO-led peacekeepers discovered the weapons in two caches hidden in a stony gully on the Shomali Plains, about 18 miles north of Kabul.

Some 200 rockets, three anti-aircraft rocket launchers, three anti-tank mines and two boxes of explosives were dug up and taken away to be destroyed. The weapons were found after a tip from a villager, said Col. Massimo Giraudo, an Italian commander.

``This is one of the biggest caches in a long time,'' he told The Associated Press. ``We're so close to Kabul that the militants could dig these up and use them to attack within 30 minutes.''


Giraudo said it wasn't clear who owned the weapons, but he suspected militants may have been plotting to use them to disrupt Sunday's legislative elections.


During presidential elections in October, several rockets were fired at Kabul from surrounding hilltops.


Supporters of the former ruling Taliban oppose the elections, the next key step in Afghanistan's transition to democracy after two decades of war.


Fighting has left more than 1,200 people dead in the past six months, including five candidates and four election workers.


The bodies of seven men were found on a main road in Gizab district of Uruzgan province on Tuesday, along with the cards that entitle them to vote.


Provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan blamed Taliban rebels and said militants had launched similar attacks before the presidential election.


``The Taliban are doing these terrorist activities and killing innocent Muslims. I don't know what kind of Muslims they are, finding voter cards and killing Muslims,'' Khan said.


The U.S. military and NATO peacekeepers have boosted their forces and say rebel threats won't stop the legislative vote.


Meanwhile, U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces on Tuesday clashed with Taliban militants in the Shinkay district of volatile southern Zabul province, killing three suspected rebels and arresting another who was injured in the fighting, said district chief Wazir Khan.


Also Tuesday, in nearby Khake district, suspected Taliban militants killed a man who worked for Afghan intelligence, district chief Ghulam Haider said.


In the eastern province of Nangahar, Afghan forces arrested five suspected militants, including three Pakistanis, as they traveled in a car Tuesday.


The army and police gave conflicting accounts of the arrests.


Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi said the men were posing as journalists and had explosives hidden inside cameras along with a remote-control device.


However, Nangahar police chief Khalil Zia said the men, two Afghans and three Pakistanis, claimed to be businessmen on a trip to sell chewing gum. He said they had three cameras, but denied explosives were found inside.


Four years ago, Ahmed Shah Masood, the head of the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban, was killed by two suspected al-Qaida assassins posing as journalists who had planted explosives inside a camera.

And other report:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants have shot dead seven Afghan civilians after finding a registration document for Sunday's elections in their car, a provincial governor said.

The attack on Tuesday in the central province of Uruzgan is the latest in a wave of violence ahead of the parliamentary and provincial council polls which has left more than 1,000 people dead this year.

Governor Jan Mohammad Khan told AFP that the rebels stopped a vehicle with seven people inside in Gizab district.

"They searched everybody, and found an official document, a car registration for election day, on one of them. Then the Taliban killed the seven people," Khan said.

Separately on Tuesday Taliban guerillas hanged an intelligence official in the southeastern province of Zabul, a known hotbed for the ousted hardline militia, police said.

"A man named Hamidullah who works for the district intelligence department was captured and killed by the Taliban. He was hanged," local police chief Ghulam Aidar told AFP.

The Taliban have vowed to sabotage preparations for Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections for more than 30 years. But last month they said they would not target voting booths on polling day to avoid civilian casualties.

US-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001 for failing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Slowly disarming Iraq:
Task Force Liberty Soldiers seize cache near Muqdadiyah

TIKRIT, Iraq – Task Force Liberty Soldiers seized a cache of weapons and ammunition near Muqdadiyah in Diyala Province in a raid at about 5:30 p.m. Sept. 13.

The cache included one 60 mm mortar system, one sniper rifle, one rocket-propelled grenade launcher and the ammunition for all three weapons systems.

Two individuals were detained in connection with the cache and are being held for questioning.

Two terrorists killed emplacing IED

TIKRIT, Iraq -- Task Force Liberty Soldiers killed two terrorists who were trying to emplace an improvised explosive device in Samarra at about 2:30 p.m. Sept. 12.

One terrorist was engaged and killed emplacing the IED, and the second was killed trying to approach the IED.

Task Force Liberty Soldiers secured the site and destroyed the IED.

And some bad news, you can bet the commie run BBC has been gloating over this:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- As many as 10 explosions ripped the Iraqi capital Wednesday, beginning with a huge suicide car bombing that shattered the morning calm in a heavily Shiite northern Baghdad district, targeting laborers gathered to find work for the day. At least 88 people were killed and 227 wounded in that attack alone.

In all, the attacks in or near the capital - including the execution of 17 men in a village north of Baghdad - killed more than 120 people and the death toll was rising rapidly. Al-Qaida in Iraq said it was behind the attacks.

A senior American military official told The Associated Press he believed the rash of bombings was retaliation for the joint Iraqi-U.S. sweep through the northern city of Tal Afar in recent days to evict insurgents from their stronghold near the Syrian border.

The bomb that hit as laborers gathered in Kazimiyah was the single deadliest in the country since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber targeted Shiite police and National Guard recruits, killing 125 people in Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad.

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