Afghanistan's historic presidential election is now unstoppable, the United States said on Monday, but other officials warned of more attacks by Taliban guerrillas and their al Qaeda allies before Saturday's vote.
In the latest violence, Afghan troops killed at least seven Taleban gunmen on Monday in the southern province of Uruzgan, a provincial spokesman said.
President Hamid Karzai, favourite to win despite being unable to campaign because of security concerns, returned from Germany after collecting an international award that recognised his contribution towards Afghanistan's progress since US-led forces ousted the Taleban in 2001 after the September 11 attacks.
But while his international standing is not in doubt - he is a key ally of US President George W. Bush - Karzai's domestic popularity will be tested on Saturday when he faces 17 other candidates in the country's first presidential election.
The Taleban has called the election a sham orchestrated by Washington and Karzai and has vowed to disrupt it.
"There have been efforts ... to prevent this election from taking place. Those efforts have failed," US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters.
"Now there is an effort by the enemies of Afghanistan, those who don't want Afghanistan to succeed, to disrupt the process. Those efforts will also fail."
Bush, who faces re-election next month, has cited Afghanistan as a foreign policy success and the upcoming vote as a major achievement of his administration, ahead of a planned January election in violence-torn Iraq.
The guerrillas distributed leaflets in Afghan refugee camps saying anyone who killed a poll worker would earn a divine reward and those who registered to vote would face punishment.
But at least 650,000 Afghans in the camps had registered by Monday, in addition to 10.5 million registered in Afghanistan itself. Another 600,000 refugees in Iran are also eligible to participate.
"I am very satisfied with the security arrangements," Lieutenant General David Barno, who heads the coalition troops in Afghanistan, said while visiting a marine detachment in the southern province of Khost.
"Saturday is a big day. This is the Super Bowl as far we are concerned," he added. "So far the enemy has been relatively quiet but I think he is saving up a few of his punches to throw probably on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We have to be ready to deal with it."
Qanuni told a 1,000-strong rally in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that 14 of the candidates had met and decided to unite, but as in the past, he remained vague on the specifics. "We decided to have one single candidate or reduce the number of candidates," Qanuni said.