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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with The World’s Aaron Schachter about Taliban attacks ahead of Afghanistan’s presidential election later this month. Schachter reports on the Afghan national army’s preparations for security during the upcoming election.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Bombings, suicide attacks, and gun battles are nearly everyday occurrences in much of Afghanistan. Kabul has been generally spared the most extreme violence. But today police say insurgents fired nine rockets into the Afghan capital. The missiles landed across the city including in the diplomatic district. It was the most significant Taliban attack against Kabul in months and it shows the Taliban’s increased strength ahead of the upcoming presidential election in Afghanistan. The World’s Aaron Schachter is in Kabul. Aaron these attacks today what kind of damage did they cause and did anybody die in these attacks?

AARON SCHACHTER: Well, they didn’t cause much damage and there weren’t deaths from what’s being reported. Apparently a young child was hurt in the attack. These are quite unsophisticated rockets. They’re probably Chinese made and basically they’re propped up against something and just fired at random. Kind of pointed at the city and fired. They have a crude device – crude but ingenious. They put the detonator in a can of water, poke a hole in the bottom of the water and run away and as the water leaks out the two electric charges touch each other and they fire off. They’re generally relatively safe but as you say they’re starting to fire them now on Kabul which is a densely populated city.

WERMAN: There was also, Aaron, a suicide attack in southern Afghanistan. What do you know about that?

SCHACHTER: Well it was apparently targeting a provincial governor down there. It was an attack on his convoy. Five people were killed and 18 were wounded. Those are the reports we have now. This has been happening all over the south, targeting government officials and candidates. Provincial elections are happening in two weeks as well as presidential elections and the Taliban has vowed to disrupt them all.

WERMAN: Now we’re about to hear a report from you about the readiness of the Afghan National Army. But with the presidential election as you say only weeks away what do all of these attacks say about the security situation in the country and particularly in the capital?

SCHACHTER: Well, certainly that it says that the security situation is precarious. People keep telling me that 34 provinces are out of the control of the government. I was at a meeting today between one of the candidates and some Pashtun tribal elders and he was saying look can you ensure that the ballot boxes will get to your constituents and that people will be able to vote? And they said yes we can. We have made deals with the Taliban. We talked to them and they will let us vote in this area. Now this was several provinces out of many provinces in the country. And the government and candidates are trying to make these deals all over but in some places they’re working and in some places they’re not.

WERMAN: So politically Aaron that’s how some leaders are preparing for the election. Militarily what’s the army doing?

SCHACHTER: Well, Marco, the military in conjunction with the independent election commission are holding rehearsals around the country to show people that they are in control and one of them took place today in Kandahar.

WERMAN: Okay Aaron let’s hear your story.

SCHACHTER: The rehearsal today was part of the effort by the government to demonstrate the Afghan National Army can protect voters during the upcoming elections. The Taliban has promised a flurry of attacks before and during the polling and there’s little room for error.

GARY: Good afternoon gentlemen if you will sit down. Okay. And for about the next hour and a half we will be talking about counter IED.

SCHACHTER: This is Gary. He won’t give his last name but he’s a former British serviceman, now a private contractor training Afghan soldiers. In this country identifying IEDs or improvised explosive devices is arguably one of the army’s most important jobs.

GARY: Okay there are four component parts – main parts. Power, the trigger or the switch, the initiator or detonator, and the main charge. We will talk through each of those in turn. Okay?

SCHACHTER: Gary shows the soldiers IEDs hidden in cigarette packs, Listerine bottles, and cell phones. The soldiers are mostly attentive under the baking sun but it’s hard to know whether it’s all sinking in. But Gary says in general the Afghan army is coming along.

GARY: There’s already people emerging in the groups that are coming through that you can see their interest. You can see they want to learn more. And they’re the guys that we need to bring on. But I think we can’t rush that process. We need to take our time.

SCHACHTER: But many here argue that a lot of time has already been wasted. It’s been almost eight years since the US and its coalition partners overthrew the Taliban with the goal of letting Afghans take charge of their country. But the army here still isn’t up to speed and about 70% of recruits leave after their three-year contract. That’s more than double the attrition rate of Western armies. Another problem is trust. In this IED training for example recruits are only shown so much. The trainers don’t want to give away exactly how much they know about IEDs for fear one of these guys might report it to the Taliban.

KEVIN STEWART: In my opinion right now the only reason that the Afghan army can’t stand on its own is because they don’t have a gross national product to pay for the logistics to do it.

SCHACHTER: Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Stewart is the incoming head of the Afghan army mentor program based in Kandahar.

STEWART: Tactic wise they’re very good. You know they know the terrain. They know how to use the terrain. They know their enemy. They know how to think like their enemy. They can shoot as well or better than their enemy. They can’t support themselves well. You know it’s just like any big unit. You know if you’re talking about a core you’re going to have five really good battalions, you’re going to have 10 fairly good battalions, and you’re going to have five weaker battalions. We have the same thing in the United States in our armies.

SCHACHTER: Even so Brigadier General Shir Mohammed Zazai is confident that the years of training have paid off. Zazai heads the Afghan army in the south.

SHIR MOHAMMED ZAZAI: [SPEAKING PASHTO]

SCHACHTER: Zazai says the Afghan army is ready for the elections fully capable of handling whatever comes its way from the Taliban or anyone else. He blames the foreign media for the Afghan army’s bad image. But Kabul University analyst Wadir Safi says he thinks the general doth protest too much.

WADIR SAFI: The most they say the least they can do. If my speaker of the defense ministry is talking since seven years, eight years, talking about Helmand and he cannot go even for 15 minutes to see Helmand, only the foreign troops are fighting there, how I can believe what my defense minister official or the police official says to me and nobody trust them.

SCHACHTER: Estimates for turnout on August 20^th are low. Some say it might not top 20% or 30% and a large part of that has to do with security fears. The Taliban have urged voters to boycott the election. Others though suggest that widespread dissatisfaction with both the current government of Hamid Karzai and in some areas with the Taliban may lead to a surprisingly high showing. For The World I’m Aaron Schachter in Kabul.

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