Taliban threaten Afghan run-off vote, urge boycott

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban called on Afghans on Saturday to boycott next month's presidential election run-off and vowed to disrupt voting in a repeat of their threat to derail the disputed first round.

Election officials are hastily trying to prepare for the Nov. 7 run-off, which removed one stumbling block for U.S. President Barack Obama as he weighs whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban.

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan once again urges their respected countrymen not to participate," the Taliban said in a statement, emailed to Reuters, saying the election process was being orchestrated by Washington.

"In order to make this process fail, all the mujahideens will carry out operations on the enemy's centres," it said of the thousands of polling stations to be set up for the vote between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

Karzai agreed to the vote after coming under heavy international pressure.

A United Nations-backed fraud investigation invalidated thousands of his votes from the Aug. 20 first round, pushing him below the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a run-off against Abdullah, his former foreign minister.

The Taliban had also threatened to disrupt the first round but, despite sporadic attacks against candidates, election officials and polling stations, the Islamists failed to disrupt the process entirely.

Security fears nevertheless contributed to a low voter turnout and election officials have said they expect turnout to be even lower for the run-off.