News Summary, Oct 5 am

Update: The supply line through Pakistan gains media attention with growing fears for food security this winter; the provincial IEC head accused of election fraud has been named, and, according to the NYT, arrested; and the ECC says it has received nearly 4,000 complaints so far.

Afghanistan – Election

• Khost Shahzada Hassan, the provincial head of the Independent Election Commission in Khost, has been arrested by police after being accused by candidates and observers of taking bribes in exchange for important election posts. Hassan has denied being arrested, saying he was staying at a police guesthouse for security reasons. [NYT] [TOLO]
• ECC The Electoral Complaints Commission has received 3,854 complaints about malpractice and fraud in the elections, about 200 of which have been ruled upon, according to the spokesman for ECC, Ahmad Zia Raffat. The names of those candidates found to have been involved in electoral fraud will be forwarded to the judiciary. Votes in about 10 polling stations in Uruzgan province and 10 in Kabul have been declared invalid. [TOLO]
• Helmand Jerome Starkey interviews officials from Helmand province who describe the Taliban “running a shadow government, seemingly in plain sight.” In one case a man’s toes were broken and feet badly swollen from the beating he received for “encouraging people to vote.” [Scotsman]
• Baghlan Jonathan S. Landay of McClatchy Newspapers files from Pul-i-Khumri, provincial capital of the northern province of Baghlan, which he writes “is engulfed by ethnic tensions, warlordism, corruption, poverty and crime.” This is fertile ground for the Taliban and other groups: “They control villages that border Pul-i-Khumri, and they attacked the town during the Sept. 18 parliamentary election. ‘The Taliban are just over there,’ police Sgt. Mohammad Sharif said, pointing to fields and orchards from his outpost atop the rubble of a ruined factory outside the center of town. ‘On Election Day, they were on the hills above the city. We were fighting here for two days and two nights.’” [McClatchy]

Afghanistan — Security and Politics

• Pakistan Militant attacks on NATO fuel trucks heading from Pakistan to Afghanistan “are a sign that the war against the Taliban is limping badly, if not hobbled,” according to an analysis in The Toronto Star. “And they show the scarcity of supply line options may be a decisive factor in how and when the conflict concludes.” Afghanistan's Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) says the problems of transporting goods through Pakistan have longer roots than the recent closure of the Torkham crossing. Afghan merchants, it says, pay hundreds of thousands of Pakistani rupees as demurrage for their merchandise every day for months. It also warns that if Kabul does not take firm steps about the issue, “food prices will soon be skyrocketing in Afghanistan.”  The World Food Programme has also complained of logistical issues in its food aid for Afghanistan, saying that about 16,000 metric tonnes of Afghan-bound wheat was awaiting customs clearance in Pakistan when heavy floods hit the country and the stocks were swamped by water. The WFP is now considering alternatives, including air drops. Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for WFP: “We have enough for this month, but will start running short in November, and the situation will be really critical in December.” Meanwhile logistical companies that use northern routes for supplying Afghanistan are touting for business: “FMN Logistics today responds to Pakistan's closing of its border and transport routes by bringing attention to the availability of the Northern Distribution Network as a safe and reliable route for transporting cargo into Afghanistan,” the company says in a press release. [Star] [TOLO] [TOLO] [Guardian] (video) [AP] [PR Newswire] [McClatchy] [TIME]
• Taliban talks Al Jazeera reports on what it says is a secret meeting involving the Afghan government, the Pakistani government and the Taliban. Among those in attendance, the report says, were Mullah Zaeef, Taliban's ex-ambassador to Pakistan, Mirwais Yasini, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan parliament, and Hikmat Karzai, a cousin of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president. There were no other immediate media reports of the meeting. [AJE]
• Ahmed Wali Karzai a rare inerview with the president’s controversial half-brother reveals the chair of Kandahar’s provincial council has a letter from the US Drugs Enforcement Agency saying that he is not the subject of narcotics investigations. The letter, he says, will be made public soon. “Then, perhaps, all these stories, which are very hurtful, will stop. I have been accused of so many things that I have begun to forget them. The only thing I have not been accused of so far is prostitution.” [Independent]

Afghanistan – Other

• Resources Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton reports on interest in Afghanistan’s mineral wealth. [AJE]

Democracy International – Mentions

This section includes mentions of Democracy International in the media and elsewhere. Including them here does not indicate that DI approves or confirms the views expressed

• Mike Signer, an observer with DI, writes about his experience in Panjshir in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “I was constantly struck by the zeal about the elections. Election posters for hundreds of candidates literally plastered streets, windows, storefronts. At one polling station, the police chief, in cheerful disregard of the rules, sat at the same table as the officials emptying the ballot boxes, watching eagerly. By the same token, election officials proudly invited monitors to watch their every move.”