Gunmen shot dead five campaign workers for an outspoken woman candidate in Afghanistan's parliamentary election next month in another sign of rising insecurity as Washington prepares to review its war strategy.
The deaths of the five - from a group of 10 kidnapped in western Herat province - were confirmed only hours after Haji Abdul Manan, a candidate in the September 18th poll, was shot dead as he walked to a mosque to pray.
He was the fourth candidate to be killed. The rising toll drew a sharp condemnation from the UN mission (UNAMA) in Afghanistan, which is assisting with the election.
"These killings constitute violent intimidation of all electoral candidates and their supporters," the agency said. "This is unacceptable.”
It called on the Afghan security forces to be on heightened vigilance over the coming weeks and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The election will be a litmus test of stability in Afghanistan, where violence is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops supporting about 300,000 Afghan security forces.
Poor security, particularly in Taliban strongholds in the south and east, already looms as the biggest challenge to the ballot, along with corruption and fraud.
Today, the bullet-riddled bodies of five members of a group of 10 who had gone missing on Thursday were found dead on a mountainside in Herat, said district chief Nisar Ahmad Popal. It was not clear who killed them, he said.
The campaign workers were supporters of Fawzia Gilani, an outspoken female candidate standing in next month's poll. The other five had turned up unharmed.
Washington officials have said they are worried violence will lead to poor voter turn-outs, especially in the mainly Pashtun south and east where the Taliban are strongest.
The poll, for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament, is also seen as a test of Afghan president Hamid Karzai's credibility after a presidential vote marred by fraud last year.
While not running this time around, Mr Karzai has sought to assert his independence from his Western backers at a time when they are urging him to do more to fight corruption and mismanagement.
President Barack Obama is to conduct a review of his Afghan war strategy in December.
The Obama administration fears corruption is boosting the Taliban-led insurgency and complicating efforts to strengthen central government control so that US and other foreign forces can begin drawing down from July 2011.
The rising civilian and military toll also weighs heavily on Mr Obama's mind. This month, a U|N report found civilian casualties had risen 31 per cent in the first six months of this year, though more than 75 per cent of those were caused by insurgents.
Reuters