Bomb hits bus full of election workers

KABUL, Afghanistan – A bomb ripped through a minibus carrying Afghan women election workers and children Saturday morning outside the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing two women and injuring 13.

The bus driver was arrested, and an investigation is under way, officials said.

A man saying he was a spokesman for the Taliban called the Associated Press and took responsibility for the bombing. The Taliban and other insurgents have announced plans to disrupt the country’s first elections, which are scheduled for September.

Female election workers will temporarily be restricted from moving around the country, said Jean Arnault, the United Nations special representative in Afghanistan. “The registration of women continues wherever possible,” he said in a statement, adding that he was “profoundly outraged” by the bombing.

Women comprise about one-third of the 4.5 million people who have registered to vote so far in Afghanistan.

President Hamid Karzai called the bombing “anti-Islamic” and said it aimed to spread poison in the country.

“The enemies of peace and stability are jealous of the fact that people are very eager to take part in voter registration, especially the residents of Nangahar province,” Karzai said.

In Nangahar province, where Jalalabad is the capital, about 600,000 people have registered, and 210,000 of those are women. Only Kabul province has registered more voters.

In Afghanistan, the sexes are traditionally segregated, whether at meals or in school. Women sign up female voters, and men sign up male voters. In some areas, female workers even knock on doors to convince women inside their homes why they should vote.

“Their killers probably wanted to stop this momentum towards broad female participation,” Arnault said. “They will not reach their goal.”

The women had left Jalalabad, about 80 miles east of Kabul, to register women to vote in the nearby district of Rodad. About 8 a.m., just as the minibus passed a military corps office, the driver stopped, opened the door and tried to run. At that moment, a bomb planted in the back of the bus exploded, said Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

One of the women died immediately. Another died at the hospital. Three other women were listed in critical condition Saturday evening, as was a boy who was traveling with his mother, according to the United Nations.

Eight other women and one child suffered minor injuries.

The United Nations sent a team of doctors and nurses from Kabul to Jalalabad to help take care of the wounded. Those in critical condition were supposed to be evacuated from Jalalabad by helicopter, Arnault said.

The bus driver was arrested soon after the attack, said Faizanullhaq, the secretary of the province’s governor, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “From my point of view, this was directly against the election process,” he said.

In recent weeks, a number of people working to register voters have come under fire in Afghanistan.

A voter registration team was attacked on the road from Gardez to Khost. A bomb wounded two Afghan election workers. Two British security specialists helping protect a registration team were killed. A heavily guarded convoy was attacked. In south and southeast Afghanistan, letters have been scattered at night warning people not to vote.

Women have been increasingly pressured not to register voters, and not to register themselves, especially in the more conservative south and southeast.

But this is the first fatal attack directly targeting female election workers.

U.N. and Afghan government officials reviewed security measures for election registration Saturday afternoon. In all likelihood, this attack will put even more pressure on the NATO summit in Istanbul this week, where officials are expected to consider whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The NATO-led international peacekeeping force of about 6,400 soldiers is confined mainly to Kabul and the northern province of Kunduz. About 20,000 U.S.-led troops are fighting insurgents, mainly in the south and southeast.