Tensions high ahead of Afghan vote

ARMED police escorted trucks carrying ballots to polling stations yesterday in preparation for weekend legislative elections in Afghanistan, as militant attacks kept tension high and a purported Taliban spokesman urged people to boycott the landmark vote.

Campaigning was forbidden after 6am - 48 hours before polls open tomorrow - but some vehicles advertising candidates still drove through the streets of the capital, which were lined with election posters slapped on walls and trees.

The elections for a new parliament and 34 provincial councils are the last formal step for Afghanistan on the path to democracy laid out with international support after US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power four years' ago.

Many hope the vote will help the country claw its way out of a spiral of violence that started with the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and sideline a rejuvenated Taliban insurgency. More than 1,200 people have been killed in the past six months.

In the latest violence, suspected Taliban militants killed three civilians in a bus bombing. An election candidate was shot dead, and a roadside bombing killed an interpreter for the US military and wounded two US troops.

Purported Taliban spokesman Mullah Latif Hakimi said that during the election, the Taliban would only attack areas where US-led coalition forces were deployed. He advised civilians to avoid such places but said the Taliban would not attack civilians voting.

"Our demand to the people of Afghanistan is don't participate in this election because it is a US policy. The Taliban is against all US policies," he said.

Information from Hakimi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue, and his exact tie to the Taliban leadership cannot be verified independently.

Yesterday, a roadside bomb hit a public bus in central Ghazni province, killing three civilians and wounding seven others, including children, local police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.

Late on Thursday, suspected Taliban gunmen dragged candidate Abdul Hadi from his house in southern Helmand province and killed him, said Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the local governor.

In Ghazni on Thursday, a roadside bomb near a US military convoy wounded two US troops and killed their Afghan interpreter, US military spokesman Lt Col Jerry O'Hara said. The two wounded soldiers were in stable condition, he said.

Local official Ahmed Jan said the blast occurred on a road leading to a polling centre just before a convoy of election workers was about to pass, carrying ballot papers. He said two other roadside bombs were found and defused in the area.

Security was tight in the capital. Checkpoints sprung up on roads and police pulled aside vehicles ranging from hay carts to ribbon- decked wedding cars for checks.

Police escorted trucks that left a Kabul warehouse loaded with ballots for delivery to polling stations, and an armed officer sat in each vehicle. Afghan security forces, US-led coalition troops and a separate NATO-led peacekeeping force were put on alert.

In a radio address late on Thursday, President Hamid Karzai urged citizens to be alert and report anything suspicious.

"We are hopeful, with the help of almighty Allah and the co-operation of the people, that the elections will be held in a free and fair environment."

Mr Karzai's office said US President George W Bush had called him to express satisfaction with election preparations.