Afghan rebel attacks cloud elections

Afghanistan: Intensive actions by the insurgents, with bombs and rockets in several cities, and limited participation clouded the presidential and provincial elections on Thursday's early morning in this occupied Islamic Central Asian nation.

Neither the tight security by around 100,000 expeditionary soldiers led by the United States and the NATO, nor the 20,000 government police agents and troops were able to prevented those attacks by the Afghan rebels in the southern Kandahar, Ghazni and helmand provinces, and northern Nangarhar, Kunar, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces.

Even Colonel Abdullah Uruzgani, commander of a battalion of Kabul police, reported to the media that two insurgents died during a clash with the military men.

The capital's police said they fought in Kort e Naw neighborhood against five armed men, who exploded several devices in different places of this populous capital.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokespeople reported that in a district police chief died in northern Baghlan province, in a rebel attack on a police station.

In northern Kunduz province, two rockets caused damage to a school, used as a polling station, but without causing any victim, and there were missile attacks in southern Helmand province, where two people were wounded. Another dynamite device exploded near the police station in Takhar province.

There are 30 candidates in the elections, including two women. Eleven of the 41 original aspirants withdrew their candidacies. Besides a new president, people will elect 430 members of the councils in the 34 provinces. Kabul, Prensa Latina