[ti:Public Urged to Ignore Afghan Candidates' Claims of Victory ]
[ar:Steve Ember]
[al: IN THE NEWS]
[by:51VOA.COM]
[00:00.00]This is IN THE NEWS 
[00:06.31]in VOA Special English.
[00:09.63]Afghanistan's Independent 
[00:12.33]Election Commission has a message: 
[00:15.31]Pay no attention 
[00:16.91]to competing claims of victory 
[00:19.70]in the presidential election. 
[00:22.04]The first ballot counts 
[00:24.63]are not expected until Tuesday.
[00:27.42]A candidate needs more than 
[00:30.40]fifty percent of the vote 
[00:32.54]to avoid a run-off election. 
[00:35.68]The campaigns of President Hamid Karzai 
[00:39.52]and former foreign minister 
[00:41.98]Abdullah Abdullah both claimed a majority.
[00:46.41]In all, there were more than 
[00:49.06]thirty candidates in the election Thursday. 
[00:52.59]It was the second presidential election 
[00:56.52]in Afghan history. Opposing from 
[01:02.00]the International Republican Institute, 
[01:04.59]financed by the American government, 
[01:07.58]say the voting process was well organized. 
[01:12.04]But they called for investigation 
[01:14.52]of a large number of reports 
[01:17.41]of voter registration cards being sold.
[01:21.59]President Obama on Friday praised 
[01:25.22]the millions of Afghans who took part
[01:28.56]in their country's presidential 
[01:30.85]and provincial elections. 
[01:33.34]He called the vote an "important step forward" 
[01:37.62]as the Afghan people seek to control their future.
[01:41.90]At least twenty-six people died
[01:45.44]in election day violence. 
[01:48.03]The Taliban had threatened to attack voters. 
[01:53.05]Afghanistan's chief elections officer, 
[01:57.28]Daoud Ali Najafi, says turnout may have been low 
[02:03.11]in provinces under a high security threat. 
[02:07.49]But he says there were many provinces 
[02:11.13]were turnout was high. He says the turnout 
[02:16.10]will be announced as soon as officials 
[02:18.99]get final numbers from the provinces. 
[02:22.52]Voter turnout was seventy percent 
[02:26.36]in the two thousand four election.
[02:29.49]Afghanistan, with help 
[02:32.79]from one hundred thousand foreign troops, 
[02:35.72]is battling an insurgency led by the Taliban. 
[02:40.50]July was the deadliest month yet 
[02:44.94]for American and NATO forces 
[02:48.18]in eight years of war. 
[02:51.16]Seventy-six coalition service members 
[02:54.89]were killed, forty-five of them American.
[02:59.12]President Obama aims to defeat the Taliban 
[03:03.05]by sending more troops and development aid 
[03:07.43]to Afghanistan while reducing troop strength in Iraq.
[03:12.66]In Iraq, a series of bombings Wednesday 
[03:17.73]killed more than one hundred people in Baghdad. 
[03:22.37]The main targets were government buildings. 
[03:26.35]It was the deadliest day in the capital 
[03:30.23]since American combat troops withdrew 
[03:34.01]from Iraqi cities on June thirtieth. 
[03:37.96]They withdrew under a security agreement 
[03:41.94]that calls for American combat forces 
[03:45.42]to leave Iraq by the end of two thousand eleven.
[03:50.45]Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the violence 
[03:56.12]on Sunnis linked to al-Qaida. He said his government 
[04:02.44]must re-examine security measures. 
[04:06.13]But Steven Biddle at the Council on Foreign Relations 
[04:10.87]in Washington says there is a bigger problem.
[04:14.70]He says the Sunni community feels 
[04:18.73]it is not fairly represented 
[04:21.37]in the Shiite-led government. 
[04:24.71]He says it will be difficult 
[04:27.59]for Iraqi security forces to stop Sunni attacks, 
[04:33.27]unless Sunnis themselves decide 
[04:36.40]to stop them as they did in two thousand seven.
[04:40.99]And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English,
[04:46.31]written by Brianna Blake with Steve Herman 
[04:50.40]and Deborah Block. I'm Steve Ember.