Afghanistan: Kabul election commission comes under Taliban attack

Suicide bombers targeted buildings near the Independent Election Commission (IEC) headquarters in Kabul Saturday, officials said, the latest in a spate of attacks ahead of next week's presidential election. The IEC has vowed that nothing will stop the vote from taking place.

Deputy Interior Minister Mohammed Ayub Salangi said five attackers were killed, ending a four-hour standoff. He added that two policemen were injured in the attack.

There were no casualties reported among the dozens of IEC staff and other people on the heavily fortified compound. The armed men wore burqas to sneak into the building unnoticed.

"I am here ... the attack is going on around the IEC compound," spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told Reuters earlier on Saturday by telephone from a safe room inside the building.

Dozens of employees and other people who had been inside the compound took cover in the basement. An explosion was followed by gunfire, IEC staff and police said.

The IEC compound is close to offices used by the United Nations Office Complex in Afghanistan (UNOCA) and other international organizations.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the second launched against an IEC office in the capital this week as the group seeks to derail the April 5 election it calls a Western-backed "sham."

The IEC came under Taliban attack last Tuesday at their regional office on the outskirts of Kabul, with a suicide bomber detonating his vehicle outside while two gunmen stormed into the building, killing four people and trapping dozens of employees inside.

But the IEC – responsible for administering and supervising elections – said nothing would prevent the elections from taking place.

"I advise terrorist organizations that your acts of terrorism will never undermine Election Day from occurring," Deputy Head of Election Commission of Afghanistan Abdul Rahman Hotaki said.

In a recent survey by the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (FEFA), about 92 percent of Afghans support the holding of presidential and provincial council elections in April, and 75 percent want to participate, local Afghan news agency Tolo News reported.

When asked what concerned them most about the elections, most respondents listed electoral fraud, not security threats, as their biggest worry.

"Our findings show that the majority of Afghans are willing to vast votes in the elections, which is good news, but they are concerned about the possibility of rigging and fraud," FEFA Chairman Nadir Naderi said, according to Tolo News.

IEC Secretary Chief Zia-ul Haq Amarkhail said election transparency is tied to security.

"When there is no security, the election commission is weak at the polling station," Amarkhail said. "Without security the election monitor will not be able to supervise the station effectively."

The Taliban also have stepped up attacks on foreigners in the Afghan capital, suggesting that they are also shifting tactics to focus on civilian targets that aren't as heavily protected as military and government installations.

The Taliban targeted an American charity, the Roots of Peace, and a nearby day care center late Friday in the Afghan capital, sending foreigners – including women and children – fleeing while Afghan security forces battled the gunmen. Officials said two Afghan bystanders were killed, a girl and a driver.

Gunmen slipped through security last week into a luxury hotel in Kabul on March 20 with pistols and ammunition hidden in their shoes, then opened fire, killing nine people – including a prominent local journalist, his wife and two children who were dining in the restaurant.

A Swedish journalist was shot to death on the street in a relatively affluent area earlier this month, and a Lebanese restaurant popular with foreigners was attacked by a suicide bomber and gunmen in January.

Al Jazeera and wire services