Afghan officials count votes as polls close

Afghanistan's officials started to count votes as polls closed Thursday after the country held its second presidential elections in its war-torn history with a sweeping security clampdown in force to prevent Taliban attacks.

Dozens of people queued up at polling stations in the capital Kabul and at towns in the largely peaceful north, but early turnout was poor in parts of the south where the Taliban have a strong presence owing to security fears.

 I ask the Afghan people to come and vote so through their vote, Afghanistan will be more peaceful, more secure and a better place 

President Hamid Karzai

Shops and business were closed and around-the-clock squads of extra police checked the few cars on the streets in Kabul.

In the southern city of Kandahar, a few small rockets landed just before polls opened, Provincial Governor Tooryalai Wesa said, after casting his own vote. A Reuters reporter heard two blasts, and two security sources said four people were injured.

Incumbent President Hamid Karzai cast his ballot in Kabul at the start of the vote expected to deliver him a second term and urged his fellow Afghans to flock to the polls.

Karzai voted in a boys' high school near his heavily fortified palace soon after polling stations opened in Afghanistan's second presidential election.

"I ask the Afghan people to come and vote so through their vote, Afghanistan will be more peaceful, more secure and a better place," said a smiling Karzai after casting his ballot for president and a provincial council.

Karzai faces an unexpectedly strong challenge from his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. Polls show Karzai winning by a wide margin, but possibly falling short of a majority and headed for a run-off in October.

Karzai is relying on the endorsements of most of the country's notorious former militia chiefs, raising alarm in the West that warlords could return to power.

The election is also a test for U.S. President Barack Obama, who has ordered a massive troop build-up this year as part of a strategy to reverse Taliban gains.

Taliban threats

Afghan women cast their votes at a polling station in Mazar-e-Sharif

In a series of statements on Wednesday, the Taliban said they had infiltrated 20 suicide bombers into Kabul and would close all the country's roads, taking no responsibility for the deaths of anyone who defied them to go to the polls.

American officials say there may be some violence, but they do not think it will reach the scale needed to wreck the vote.

"The situation is serious and we need to turn the momentum of the enemy, but we can do that," said the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The Afghan government has requested international and domestic media not report violence during polling hours, a ban that the United Nations says it has asked authorities to lift.

Richard Holbrooke, Obama's envoy to Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan and currently visiting Kabul, said expectations for the poll's outcome needed to be realistic.

Increased attacks

 The situation is serious and we need to turn the momentum of the enemy, but we can do that 

NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal

The extent of any election violence is hard to predict. The tempo of attacks has clearly increased in the weeks leading to the poll, with fighters mounting two big suicide car-bomb strikes and a building siege inside the normally secure capital.

Security in most of the country is still better than it was in Iraq when several successful elections were held there, but the Taliban may be able to fatally damage the vote even without big attacks, if their threats keep people from the ballot box.

More than 30,000 U.S. troops have arrived in Afghanistan this year, raising the size of the international force above 100,000 for the first time, including 63,000 Americans. McChrystal could ask for more when he issues a report next week.

The new troops have made bold advances into previously Taliban-held areas, but have also taken by far the worst casualties of the war. More Western troops have died in Afghanistan since March than in the entire period from 2001-04.

The U.S. military said six Americans died in southern Afghanistan on the eve of the vote. A new poll in the Washington Post found 51 percent of Americans believe the war is not worth fighting, and only a quarter favor sending more troops.