More than 40 people, including civilians, security forces and Taliban fighters were killed Saturday as Taliban militants tried to derail the second post-Taliban parliamentary polls, officials said. Among those killed in rockets and bombings were 11 civilians, three policemen and one soldier, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Interior Minister Besmillah Khan Mohammadi told reporters in a joint press conference.
At least 27 Taliban militants were also killed, the officials said. More than 100 others, including 45 civilians, were injured when Taliban fired rockets and attacked numerous polling stations across the country shortly after balloting began.
One Nato-led soldier was also killed in an insurgent attack on Saturday, the alliance military said in a statement without revealing his nationality or whether the deceased was taking part in an election related operation.
More than 110,000 Afghan police and army personnel provided security for more than 5,000 polling stations in the country's 34 provinces. Nearly 150,000 US and Nato troops, who are currently based in the country, were standing by to provide assistance if necessary. The Afghan security forces have been preparing for the security of the polls for months. A total of 300 soldiers have killed and 950 others injured in election related operations since June 15, according to Wardak.
AFP adds: Afghans braved deadly Taliban attacks to vote for a new parliament Saturday, as officials said that the violence could keep the turnout at about 40 percent, slightly up on last year's presidential poll At least 11 civilians were killed and complaints of irregularities emerged, following UN and US warnings that security and fraud vote since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban.
Insurgents fired rockets in several cities and set off bombs at a polling station and beside a convoy carrying the governor of Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in the south, but officials said several more attacks were foiled. Stressing that it was not a final figure, Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the country's senior election official, said 3,642,444 votes had been cast at 4,632 polling centres, according to preliminary data.
"This makes 40 percent of the maximum number of voters," he said. The UN's envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, said he expected turnout in the south - where the Taliban are based and the insurgency at its fiercest - to be affected by the violence as "security was not good".
"I would have a mixed picture because... the security incidents were quite a lot. We have to see tonight whether this has affected the turnout," he said. "We believe that in the south it might have really done that, whereas in other parts of the country... there was quite an enthusiastic participation," he told BBC television.
Men and women queued to vote at separate polling stations, dressed in traditional clothes and burqas, determined to cast their ballots despite the security headaches and fears of retribution. Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that by the close of voting at 4:00 pm (1130 GMT), it had recorded 303 incidents of election-related violence, compared with 479 during last year's presidential poll.
The United States and Nato have almost 150,000 troops in the country fighting to bring an end to the long war, now dragging towards its tenth year. "I am scared. I know there are Taliban threats but I felt I had to come and vote," said housewife Fawzya, who came out with three daughters and two daughters-in-law in the city of Kandahar.
Tens of thousands of Afghan and US-led Nato forces were involved in a massive security operation to guard against raids after the Taliban urged a boycott and warned it would attack anyone involved in the vote. Karzai - whose own re-election last year was mired in massive fraud - called on people to vote to take their country "forward to a better future" after 30 years of war.
More than 2,500 candidates contested 249 seats in the lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga. Among them, 406 women were vying for 68 seats reserved for them under legislation designed to better their rights. The IEC said while thousands of polling centres had opened, more than 1,000 were shut because of insecurity.
Final turnout among the 9.2-million-strong electorate - around 33 percent last year - will be key. Experts said violence, expectations of fraud, vested interests and a voting process that favours the status quo would knock numbers. The Electoral Complaints Commission said it had received complaints of delayed opening, intimidation, ineligible voters, misuse of registration cards, proxy voting, poor ink quality and shortages of ballot papers. Some Afghans also reported being able to rub the ink off their fingers with little effort, despite officials saying that it was the best quality available. "In west Kabul the ink rubs off. After I voted, the ink rubbed off," said Mohammad Zahir Najafi Zada, one of the candidates.
The United Nations and United States have conceded the vote would be flawed, but highlighted the fact that it was taking place at all and had said that they expected it to be better than last year's presidential election. Three Nato troops were reported to have died in separate incidents, one a non-battle injury, but it was not immediately clear if the deaths were directly related to the election violence. Seven people were killed in rocket attacks in the eastern province of Nangarhar, while similar incidents in Kunar, also in the east, and Takhar, in the north, left four more civilians dead. Insurgents also fired a rocket near Nato headquarters in Kabul before polls opened, but no casualties or damage were reported.
Toryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar province, said he survived a roadside bomb attack while visiting polling centres in the volatile region. But Afghan authorities described security as better than expected and said that several planned attacks had been thwarted.
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