KABUL, 17 October 2004 — Seven people including two US soldiers died in explosions in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday, as early results from historic elections gave President Hamid Karzai a strong lead over his rivals. Three rockets were also fired in the capital, injuring one woman and damaging an apartment building, in the latest of a string of attacks since last Saturday’s poll.
Security experts had warned of a possible resurgence of violence after the election, which was largely peaceful despite threats of attack from loyalists of the hard-line Islamic Taleban regime ousted in late 2001. The US military said two US troops were killed on Thursday in a land mine blast in the south-central province of Uruzgan, a hotbed of a Taleban-led insurgency, while an Afghan soldier was killed in a mine explosion in western Herat.
Another four people, including three children, were killed in eastern Kunar province late Friday when a remote-controlled bomb exploded after a crowd had gathered near a truck that had been set alight as it was delivering food to US bases, an Afghan official said. Karzai condemned Friday’s attack, which fell on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, as “inhuman and un-Islamic.”
US military spokesman Scott Nelson said, meanwhile, that US troops and the Afghan government would “maintain vigilance and maintain security and a high presence” to deter face-saving attacks by militants in the wake of their failure to disrupt the polls.
Vote counting started in most areas on Thursday after a delay caused by allegations of irregularities. It resumed Saturday after a break Friday for the start of Ramadan and kicked off for the first time at regional counting centers in western Herat, eastern Jalalabad and Bamiyan.
With an estimated 2.6 percent of the total ballots counted, US-backed Karzai, the pre-poll favorite, was far ahead with a 72 percent of the vote.
He was trailed by former Education Minister Yunus Qanuni with 12.8 percent, the Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body said on its website.
In third place with 6.9 percent was Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and in fourth was ethnic Hazara military strongman Mohammed Mohaqeq with 2.1 percent. Afghanistan’s only female candidate Masooda Jalal was lying sixth with one percent of the votes almost level with little known Syed Ishaq Gilani at fifth also with one percent. The other 13 presidential candidate all had less than one percent.
The initial count included votes from only 11 of the country’s 34 provinces. The elections were marred by allegations of fraud and mismanagement after indelible ink used to mark voters fingers and prevent multiple voting was found to wash off.
