KABUL, Jan 29: Afghanistan on Thursday announced presidential elections for Aug 20, hoping a US troop surge would improve security at a time when violence was at the highest levels since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban.

President Hamid Karzai has strongly hinted he will run for re-election saying he still has “a job to complete”.

Western nations see successful Afghan elections as a key marker of progress in the face of a Taliban insurgency that has grown stronger in the ethnic Pashtun heartlands and is now encroaching into areas just outside the capital.—Reuters