Taliban call for polls boycott

Taliban rebels today urged Afghans to boycott this weekend’s legislative elections that many are hoping will marginalise the insurgents, while a candidate was shot dead and four other people were killed in bombings near polling stations, officials said.

With some 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops on alert, election workers used donkeys, dilapidated trucks and helicopters to haul millions of ballot papers to more than 6,000 polling centres ahead of Sunday’s vote.