Karzai hints at re-election bid

KABUL—Afghan President Hamid Karzai is hinting that he may run for a second term. Karzai told a news conference Sunday that he has reached some of his goals since being elected in 2004, but that there is still more work left to be done. He says he prays that the people of Afghanistan are happy with his time in office and that they allow him to “complete the work that I started _ if they vote for me.”
Afghan forces have killed 15 Taliban insurgents and arrested a key commander of the outfit in south Afghanistan over the past one week, officials said on Sunday. “Fifteen Taliban rebels were killed in an operation launched in Jalai district of Kandahar province eight days ago and concluded on Saturday,” said a press release of Afghan defense ministry on Sunday.
A number of arms and ammunition had also been seized by the troops during the operation, it said. Moreover, Police in Kandahar province arrested a Taliban key commander Mullah Abdul Jabbar from Kandahar city on Saturday, an Interior Ministry statement said Sunday.
Jabbar served as deputy to Taliban notorious commander Mullah Mansoor who was captured by security authorities in Pakistan months ago, said the statement. Taliban militants have not made any comment on the arrest so far. Conflicts and Taliban-related violence have left over 320 people mostly civilians dead since January this year in Afghanistan.
Insurgents have blown up a school, but fortunately hurt no one, in the eastern Afghanistan province of Paktika, said a statement of the U.S.-led Coalition forces released here on Sunday. “The school was built by Afghan citizens and sponsored by Coalition forces in Farouq district of Pakitka,” the statement said, adding that the incident happened Thursday.”
Villagers told police and Coalition forces that a man with his face veiled exited a taxi in front of the school where detonation occurred approximately twenty minutes after the taxi departed,” it added.
On multiple occasions, insurgents in Afghanistan have destroyed schools and threatened to murder teachers in an attempt to undermine Afghan government efforts to provide a better education for Afghan youth. According to Afghan Ministry of Education, 220 students and teachers have been killed in the militant-related violence
“He was involved in Taliban insurgent operations against the Afghan state and coalition forces,” the ministry said in a statement. Also on Saturday, 15 insurgents were killed in two clashes about 40 km (25 miles) west of Kandahar city, the Defense Ministry said, in an area where NATO and Afghan forces have repeatedly battled the Taliban in recent years.
The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001, have vowed to step up their violent campaign to expel foreign forces and bring down the Western-backed government. Violence surged in Afghanistan over the past two years. Last year, more than 6,000 people killed, almost a third of them civilians, raising questions about how to deal with the Taliban. The government has been trying to tempt mid- and low-level Taliban to give up their fight and re-join society but it has had little impact on sapping the insurgents’ strength.

—Agencies