110 militants killed in Afghanistan air strikes
 

KABUL: More than 110 militants have been killed and over four dozen others sustained injuries as fighting planes struck Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan's northern Sari Pul, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces on Tuesday night, army spokesman in the northern region Mohammad Hanif Rezai said on Wednesday.The sorties struck Taliban hideouts in Sari Pul's Qashqari area, parts of Qaramqul district in Faryab and Gardan village of Darzab district in Jawzjan province, the official said, adding more than 50 armed militants have been wounded in the raids. No security personnel or civilians were wounded in the air raids, the official asserted.Aimed at stabilising security ahead of the voting day, Rezai said that crackdowns on militants would continue.Afghanistan’s presidential elections are slated for Saturday and more than 9.4 million eligible voters are expected to cast their vote amid tight security.Taliban outfit has termed the coming elections in Afghanistan as a sham practice and vowed to disrupt the voting process.Candidates in Afghanistan´s presidential election pushed their messages for the last time on Wednesday as campaigning for weekend polls wrapped up amid deadly violence.The bloodshed that has marred the election since day one showed no sign of abating, with fresh blasts targeting the campaign offices of President Ashraf Ghani, including one late Tuesday that killed a local journalist. Fears also abound for a repeat of the last presidential poll, in 2014, which was beset by allegations of systematic fraud.After two days of no campaigning on Thursday and Friday, Afghans head to the polls on Saturday to decide whether Ghani — who was elected in 2014 — should be awarded a second term.Eighteen names appear on the ballot but the only other candidate thought to have a chance is Ghani´s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan´s “chief executive” who was awarded the role after 2014´s bitter election. Both contenders and their running mates held rallies across Afghanistan on Wednesday.Saturday´s poll was initially slated to take place in April, but was twice delayed because election workers were not prepared, and the US was leading a push to forge a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban.On Wednesday, officials said an Afghan journalist wounded by a roadside bomb as he headed home from work Tuesday had died. Abdul Hamid Hotaki, a news presenter for a local radio station in Kandahar, was caught by a blast near a Ghani campaign office, provincial spokesman Baheer Ahmadi told AFP.Three other people — including a child — died, Afghanistan´s interior ministry said, blaming the Taliban for the bombing. Also Wednesday, another blast hit a Ghani campaign office in Lashkar Gah in the southern province of Helmand, wounding at least three people, the local police chief spokesman said.Meanwhile in Taloqan city, capital of northeastern Takhar province, security officials said on Wednesday they had detained a teenaged would-be suicide bomber who had planned to carry out an attack at a polling station on election day.In the meantime Afghanistan’s Taliban lifted ban on World Health Organisation activities in areas the militants’ control, a spokesman for the Islamist group said.The Taliban had in April banned the WHO and International Committee of the Red Cross, citing their “suspicious activities” during vaccination campaigns, which threatened to deepen one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.The health arm of the United Nations has been carrying out a vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, one of just three countries where polio is still endemic.In the statement, the Taliban gave a guarantee of safety for WHO staff but also set conditions for its return, including only doing health work, getting the insurgency’s permission before hiring workers and only carrying out polio vaccine campaigns in health centers.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/KCX8FacfO48

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