VZCZCXRO5565
OO RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #3296 3631440
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 281440Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6547
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS KABUL 003296 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG 
NSC FOR JWOOD 
OSD FOR MCGRAW 
CG CJTF-101, POLAD, JICCENT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KDEM PGOV AF
SUBJECT: TWO ELECTION WORKERS SUPERFICIALLY WOUNDED IN 
SUICIDE BLAST IN KHOST 
 
REF: A. KABUL 2708 
     ¶B. KABUL 2851 
     ¶C. KABUL 3020 
     ¶D. KABUL 3215 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  As reported in international media, a suicide 
bomber on December 28 detonated an explosives-packed vehicle 
at an Afghan security forces checkpoint outside the district 
center in Manduzai district in Khost province.  Press reports 
indicate police stopped the bomber before he reached his 
apparent target, the district government center compound.  A 
school is adjacent to the compound, and most of the 
casualties are reported to be children. Authorities report 
four students killed, as well as one police officer, one 
Afghan soldier and another individual.  The number of deaths 
and injuries could grow. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  A voter registration center, among other 
government facilities, is located in the compound. It is 
unclear whether the voter registration facility was the 
target of the attack.  Insurgents have attacked all of 
Khost's district centers over the past year, with Manduzai 
the last to be struck in this attack.  At the time of the 
incident, local officials and community leaders were meeting 
to discuss voter registration and elections.  The Khost 
Provincial Electoral Officer (PEO) told the headquarters of 
the Independent Elections Commission (IEC) that the blast 
superficially wounded two election workers. One pregnant 
female  district field coordinator (DFC) was hospitalized for 
shock but otherwise uninjured.  One male registration site 
worker suffered minor injuries. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  The two injured election workers in Khost are the 
first casualties among Afghan election officials since voter 
registration opened on October 6.  As reported retels, rocket 
attacks near district centers in Farah and Ghazni have 
ambiguously coincided with voter registration periods; this 
is the first suicide bomb near a district center hosting 
voter registration, however, and the first such attack to 
cause numerous casualties. In other security incidents, 
reported reftels, election workers have been kidnapped and 
released in Farah and Paktika, and two convoys of election 
materials, one traveling through Ghanzi and one traveling 
from Kunar to Nuristan, came under attack.  Relative to the 
overall activity of anti-government elements, these incidents 
remain vastly insignificant in number. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  The effect of this attack on Phase 3 voters and on 
voter registration numbers remains to be seen.  In Khost, the 
first 13 days of this 30-day Phase 3 registration update 
produced a 12 percent increase in registered voters over 
voters at the polls in 2004.  By comparison, the 
also-troubled nearby Phase 1 province of Ghazni in 30 days 
saw a 20 percent increase in new registrants over 2004 
voters.  This suggests that, at least until this attack, 
Khost was roughly comparable.  Since December 13, the first 
15 days of Phase 3 in the provinces of Farah, Zabul, Paktika, 
Nangarhar, Laghman and Khost added 378,257 new voters to the 
rolls.  For these six relatively sparsely-populated 
provinces, this figure already represents a respectable 
addition to the 2.5 million voters added to the rolls in the 
larger, more populous 24 provinces of Phases 1 and 2. 
WOOD