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  • Oct 10th, 2004
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Up to 40 people were killed in fresh violence in Afghanistan's restive south, but the threat of Taleban attacks did not deter men and women from voting in Saturday's historic election. The single largest clash reported on polling day was in Uruzgan province, where governor Jan Mohammad Khan told Reuters that 24 suspected Taleban guerrillas were killed, as well as one civilian, in an air strike by US-led forces.

But residents in the area countered that 14 civilians, 13 of them women or children, died in the bombing, according to accounts to Reuters and the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency.

Khan said the gunmen attacked US and Afghan troops in Char Cheno district at about 1:30am (2100 GMT on Friday), and sustained heavy losses when close air support was called in.

Colonel Richard Pedersen, commander of US-led forces in southern Afghanistan, said he was aware of the clash, but declined further comment.

The bombing, and a series of attacks on the eve of and during the country's first direct presidential ballot, could not dampen the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands of people who queued outside polling stations for hours to cast votes.

In Kandahar city, the Taleban militia's stronghold until its collapse in 2001, the atmosphere was festive during early hours of polling, as crowds of men pushed to get into a voting site near the blue-tiled Kherqi Sharif mosque.

On the other side of the street, a trickle of women covered in burqa veils entered the Aino Lycee school to take part.

"We came here to vote for peace and stability and freedom for women," said Raihana, a 37-year-old mother of eight who lived in exile in Iran for 14 years to flee war.

"I am illiterate and I want a chance to learn," she said from behind her heavy veil. "If the Taleban were in power, our lives would still be in ruins and my daughters would not be able to go to school."

Hazarato, 60, who gave just one name, said the Taleban had put her and other women "in a cage". Her burqa, she explained, was not a tool of repression.

"Freedom for us is not about showing your face, but to live freely, to be able to vote," she said, adding that she, like most other Kandaharis, chose frontrunner President Hamid Karzai.

Southern voting seemed little affected by events in Kabul, where most of the 18 presidential candidates boycotted the poll after it emerged that the ink used to mark voters' thumbs and avoid multiple voting could be rubbed off in some cases.

"It's completely fair," said Ghulam Farooq of the vote, after casting his ballot at the Sardar Madad Khan school.

"Whatever these candidates are doing is not right. They should not try to upset the process."

BALLOT BOXES FULL: Yusuf Pashtun, provincial governor of Kandahar, said Afghans had embraced the election, despite concerns that remnants of the ousted Taleban militia would try to disrupt it, particularly in the volatile south and south-east.

"This was not only election day, but for most Afghans this has been a national festival," he told reporters.

But he also listed a series of attacks in Kandahar province, including a freshly laid mine that killed eight policemen heading from Shawali Kot, north of Kandahar city, on Friday.

An Afghan militia patrol also hit a mine in the Panjwai district on Saturday afternoon, killing two people, and two civilians died when the tractor taking them home from the voting site hit another mine.

Separately, three Afghan soldiers were killed and four wounded in an attack by gunmen as they carried ballot boxes to Tirin Kot in the central province of Uruzgan, according to provincial police chief Rozi Khan.

US-led forces were called into action at least twice in the south, once during the Uruzgan incident and also on the border between Pakistan and Helmand province, where insurgents attacked an election site just inside Afghanistan on Saturday.

The militants fled back into Pakistan when coalition aircraft flew over the area, officials said.

Security in Kandahar city was tight, with Afghan police carrying guns guarding polling sites and searching voters, and American soldiers out on foot patrol with local forces.

Despite election fever in some areas, the vote was not universally popular across the south, where many prefer the ousted Taleban and its strict interpretation of Islamic laws to a US-backed government backed by thousands of foreign troops.

"I am not going to vote," said Noor Mohammad, a 40-year-old shopkeeper in the southern border town of Spin Boldak.

"I was happy with the Taleban government. They were overthrown by the Americans and now it feels like an American occupation. The election is an American drama."

Copyright Reuters, 2004


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