Rockets rained on Afghan cities and military posts and a huge truck bomb was seized as the war-weary nation prepared for Saturday’s historic presidential elections under the threat of further militant attacks.
The embassy district in the capital, Kabul, was among the targets as more than two dozen rockets were fired around the country in a 24-hour period, Major Scott Nelson, a spokesman for the United States-led coalition said.
Remnants of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban regime ousted by the US-led invasion in late 2001, and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group have vowed to disrupt the poll.
The Kabul rocket, which was larger than the type normally used by insurgents, exploded above the headquarters of the US-led coalition without causing any injuries, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.
A rocket strike wounded two children in eastern Jalalabad city while four more people were injured in firefights in southeastern Afghanistan.
Front-runner and US-backed interim President Hamid Karzai said he believed conditions were right for a ”fairly free” election despite ”terrorist attacks” and reports of intimidation by drug-funded warlords.
A fuel tanker rigged as a huge truck bomb was seized on the outskirts of Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar Friday and three Pakistanis were arrested, a spokesman for Nato peacekeepers said.
The tanker was carrying 40 000 litres of fuel and packed with explosives, including several rocket rounds and anti-tank mines, Lieutenant Commander Ken McKillop told reporters.
Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told a news briefing: ”It could have been a very huge explosion.”
In another sign of trouble ahead, two suspected suicide bombers were arrested in Jalalabad, Azimi said.
In Kabul, the interior ministry announced that trucks, provincial taxis, and carts would not be allowed into the city for several days over the election. The streets of the capital were unusually quiet, and several Afghans said they were afraid.
”We are worried about security and we see people looking worried. Maybe there will be some explosion tomorrow,” said Zubair, 19.
But voters in Kandahar, once the heartland of the Taliban, were enthusiastic about the election and saw it as a chance to turn their backs on war.
”During the Taliban, although my beard was mine, the authority was theirs. I could not choose to shave. The schools were closed. We had no rights,” said 55-year-old Fateh Mohammed, a fruit trader.
Mohammed said his wives, son and three daughters would all vote for Karzai and threats of violence by the Taliban would not put them off.
There were voices of dissent, though.
”I am angry with Karzai because he called the Americans to our country and let them take charge of it. I hate to even hear his name,” shouted an elderly man before riding away on his bicycle.
Tense security forces patrolled Herat as the western Afghan city, at the centre of violent clashes in August and September, prepared to vote.
At the airport, where US-led coalition troops and newly-trained Afghan soldiers are deployed, Afghan security forces were ”on edge”, said a United Nations official.
A total of 100 000 international and local troops, police and security personnel will guard some 10,5 million registered voters as they go to the polls.
The US still has more than 18 000 troops in Afghanistan, backed by 9 000 Nato peacekeepers, and the men and women who leave their farms and villages for the 5 000 polling stations scattered through Afghanistan’s wild landscape will be casting a vote with global resonance in the so-called war on terrorism. – Sapa-AFP