Afghan authorities arrested 60 Taleban guerrillas who were planning to derail the upcoming presidential election, officials said on Saturday, as campaigning intensified for the poll in a week's time.
President Hamid Karzai's deputies and his main opponent hit the election trail. But Karzai, almost invisible during the campaign amid security concerns, prepared to go to Germany to receive an award.
Sayed Fazluddin Agha, a senior official in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, said the guerrillas were intercepted on Friday as they slipped across the frontier.
"Their aim was to target voting centres and government troops in Helmand and Uruzgan provinces," he said. "During the initial investigation, we found they were planning to attack the elections."
Helmand and Uruzgan are both in the south of the country and are part of the stronghold of the Taleban, who were ousted from power by US-led forces in 2001 for failing to hand over al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
The US military, leading 18,000 troops hunting Taleban and al Qaeda militants, also said it had thwarted planned attacks aimed at disrupting the country's first ever direct presidential vote, but warned of more violence to come.
"As we get closer to the election we expect to see more activity," US military spokesman Major Scott Nelson told reporters. "It only takes one person with a car bomb to get in there and get lucky and do something."
The threat of violence has been one factor behind a muted campaign so far, with Karzai virtually absent and some rivals calling for the poll to be delayed.
CAMPAIGNING INTENSIFIES: On Saturday, however, campaigning was markedly up.
Leading candidate Yunus Qanuni travelled to the city of Ghazni and then further south to Kandahar, taking him to the heartland of the largest ethnic Pashtun clan that is expected to back its kinsman Karzai.
Ethnic divisions will play an important role in the polls, analysts say. Qanuni is an ethnic Tajik, Karzai is a Pashtun and Abdul Rashid Dostum, the third main contender for the presidency, is a general from the Uzbek community. A total of 18 candidates are in the fray.
While Karzai is widely tipped to win, he may not get the majority he needs to clinch the presidency. Qanuni is likely to be his closest challenger and hopes to force the vote to a runoff between the top two candidates, which will be held in November.
Karzai's running mate, Vice-President Karim Khalili, went to the country's second-biggest city of Herat on Saturday, where he was met at the airport by a noisy, exuberant crowd of 2,000.
Hundreds more lined the street as he drove to the city's main stadium where he exhorted people to vote.
"You must participate in the election and vote," he said. "If the election process fails, it will be a blow for Afghanistan." In Kabul, Karzai's other running mate for the election, Ahmad Zia Masood, read out their manifesto on a programme to be broadcast on state television, saying Afghanistan had to take advantage of international support to resolve its problems.
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