Taliban threatens to carry out attacks against election targets

Claiming that the elections are conspiracies of the West and the United States, the group in a statement said “The Islamic Emirate instructs all its Mujahidin to halt this American led process throughout the country by creating severe obstacles for it, while taking extensive and intensive care of civilian Afghan lives and their properties.”
“Those people who are trying to help in holding this process successfully by providing security should be targeted and no stone should be left unturned for the prevention and failure of this malicious American conspiracy,” the statement added.
The parliamentary and district council elections are scheduled to be organized on 20^th of October.
This comes as the security officials had earlier assured that necessary precautions are in place to ensure the safety and security of the elections.
Deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Nusrat Rahimi, told reporters last week that “54 thousand defense and security forces are assigned to secure 5,100 polling centers which included 21,000 polling stations on Election Day.”
 Rahimi further added that “ANDSF increased offensive and aggressive operations by 36 percent and number of ANDSF causalities has decreased due to the increase in offensive operations. This helped the security situation of the country improve, especially Kabul city.”