The latest British soldier to die during the elections in Afghanistan was the son of the SAS hero who led the raid during the Iranian Embassy siege.
Serjeant Paul McAleese, 29, was the son of John McAleese, who became an iconic symbol of the bravery of the SAS as he was filmed storming the building in 1980, rescuing 19 hostages. His son, who was serving with the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, had hoped to follow in his father’s footsteps and be selected for the SAS.
He was killed by a roadside bomb as he went to the aid of Private Jonathan Young, 18, on Thursday morning during a routine foot patrol in Helmand province as the country went to the polls. Private Young also died. He is understood to be the first fatality among the extra service personnel sent to the region to maintain troop levels after a record number of injuries and deaths.
The Ministry of Defence said that neither of the men’s deaths was linked to security operations surrounding the elections. They bring to 206 the number of British service personnel who have died since 2001, all but five since 2006 when troops were first sent to Helmand province.
Private Young was serving with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. He and Serjeant McAleese were killed in Sangin in northern Helmand, where 16 servicemen have died in four weeks.
Serjeant McAleese’s father became a symbol of the bravery of the SAS when he was photographed placing explosives on the balcony of the embassy in Kensington in May 2005 moments before storming the building. He was awarded the Military Medal for his part in that mission.
His son leaves a widow, Jo, and a son, Charley, who was born a week before his deployment.
In a tribute, his wife said: “Mac, my husband, my best friend, my hero. You were an amazing Daddy to Charley and the best husband I could have ever asked for. We will love you and miss you for ever. We will always be so proud of what you achieved in your life and I am so, so proud to be your wife.”
The deaths came as President Karzai and his main rival, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, both claimed victory in the first round of Afganistan’s presidential election yesterday.
Both candidates met Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Kabul. Mr Holbrooke, anxious to avoid violent protests in the midst of an intensifying war against the Taleban, urged them to wait for official results.
Observers continued to report widespread electoral fraud and low turnout in the south and southeast, due largely to Taleban attacks and threats — undermining international declarations that the vote was a resounding success. The Times also discovered serious discrepancies in the figures reported by election officials in the district where British forces launched Operation Panther’s Claw in mid-June to push back the Taleban to allow 80,000 more people to vote.
Engineer Abdul Hadee, the head of the Independent Election Commission in Helmand, told The Times on Thursday that fewer than 150 people voted in Nad-e-Ali, the province’s most populous district. Yesterday, the same man said 5,000 votes had been cast, while Abdul Ahad Helmandwal, the head of the local council, put the number of votes at 7,000.
Mr Helmandwal, who is believed to be Mr Karzai’s political agent in the district, said there were only 16 votes for Dr Abdullah there, and the rest were all for Mr Karzai. Analysts said the discrepancies illustrated how Mr Karzai’s allies were trying to rig the vote in the south to compensate for poor turnout among the Pashtuns who usually support him.
“I think that’s going to be the pattern,” Martine van Bijlert of the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network said. “Local information says there’s a very low turnout, but then the boxes are coming back full. It’s mostly in the insecure areas where it’s difficult to observe and where local commanders are strong.” She and other analysts cast doubt on both the candidates’ claims that they had already won based on reports from their own election monitors.
Deen Mohammad, Mr Karzai’s campaign chief, claimed yesterday morning that Mr Karzai had secured the majority needed to avoid a run-off with Mr Abdullah on October 1. “We will not go to a second round,” he said. “We have got a majority.”
Mr Abdullah’s spokesman immediately dismissed that and said that early results from all but three provinces put Mr Abdullah on 63 per cent of the vote, and Mr Karzai on 31. “We should say that Mr Abdullah has won in the first round,” Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said.
The Independent Election Commission urged both candidates to wait until it started to publish preliminary official results on September 25. Mr Holbrooke made a similar appeal when he met Dr Abdullah at the US Embassy and Mr Karzai at the presidential palace.
Western officials fear that Dr Abdullah, who is half Pashtun and half Tajik, might dispute the result, sparking violent protests from his mostly Tajik supporters.
But he is thought to be reluctant to do that as, at 48, he has a long career ahead of him and has earned the respect of the international community for the way he has run his campaign.
