KABUL, 7 October 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s running mate in Saturday’s historic presidential poll escaped unhurt yesterday when a bomb set off by Taleban fighters narrowly missed his car as he headed for an election meeting.

It was the last day of campaigning and two of the 18 candidates announced they were pulling out in favor of Karzai. One was not considered to have a wide following but the other, Sayed Ishaq Gailani, is from one of the country’s best-known religious families.

Karzai has always been favorite to win, but Gailani’s move could help him get the required 51 percent of the vote he needs to avoid a November runoff.

Vice presidential candidate Ahmad Zia Masood, brother of Ahmad Shah Masood, the assassinated resistance hero during the Soviet occupation, was attacked in Faizabad, the capital of mountainous Badakhshan province in the remote northeast, where he had gone for a campaign rally.

Explosives planted in the road went off as the convoy in which he was traveling headed from the airport to the rally site, killing two people and injuring at least two, said Saeed Alam Tohib, the head of provincial security.

One of the injured was Sayed Ikramuddin, a former governor of Badakhshan and a close Karzai ally. Masood was unhurt.

Taleban official Mullah Dadullah claimed responsibility for the attack. “It was a remote-controlled bomb planted on a road side. But Masood’s car missed it because it went off late,” he told Reuters on telephone.

Badakhshan is far from the Taleban’s southern stronghold. Although the attack appeared to demonstrate a far-flung capability of the militia, there have been relatively few attacks outside the south in recent weeks.

Karzai himself campaigned in Kabul yesterday, urging Afghans to follow the example of their warrior ancestors and become heroes — but of the ballot box, not the battlefield.

Addressing a rally of about 4,000 people, Karzai said he would rather someone voted for one of his opponents than not vote at all.

“You have shown yourselves to be heroes versus the Soviet Union and terrorists,” Karzai said. “Now show yourselves to be heroes of the vote.”

Hundreds of Afghan troops and police — and a crack American bodyguard detail — slapped a tight security cordon around the national stadium where Karzai spoke.

The Taleban used the stadium to publicly execute criminals during their five-year rule.

“I am here because I want to show my support for the president,” said Obidullah, an English teacher, carrying a huge green, black and red Afghan flag. “He has brought security to the country, and with security we can get prosperity.”

Security has been the over-riding concern for the election, which the Taleban and Al-Qaeda have threatened to disrupt. But hope is growing that it will pass off smoothly and perhaps mark a turning point in the war-torn nation’s fortunes.

“Afghans are convinced that a popularly elected, representative president is urgently needed in order to bring an end to the violence, whether by factions or extremists, to achieve reform, disarmament, justice and the rule of law,” said Jean Arnault, the special UN representative for Afghanistan.

Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek leader from northern Afghanistan who is one of the candidates, made a rare foray into Kabul as the campaign closed and lambasted Karzai. “Afghanistan has received millions of dollars, but we do not have the reconstruction to show for it,” he told a crowd of about 2,000 supporters.

“I have fought for Afghanistan all my life. I am not like those who spent their time in Germany or Europe,” he said, a reference to the years Karzai spent in exile.

Dostum warned that the government will not be legitimate unless he wins Saturday’s election, but he stopped short of saying he would not accept the result of the vote.

“Firstly I tell you that we will win. If not, the future government without us would have no legitimacy,” Dostum told a crowd of fewer than 1,000 people, mainly from his minority Uzbek ethnic group.

The warlord arrived in a black Mercedes at the Kabul football stadium, then mounted a horse after delivering his speech.

The horse is the symbol of Dostum’s campaign. But after receiving the adulation of the crowd as the horse reared, the flamboyant politician dismounted and left by car.

All this is very new to Afghanistan, which has been torn by war since the 1979 Soviet invasion and has not held any form of election since the late 1960s. More than 10.5 million people have signed up to vote within Afghanistan from a population of about 28 million and an adult population of about 14 million, an extremely high figure in the impoverished and mountainous nation.