“I want to show that I am not afraid of the Taliban,” Mohammad Zaman declared as he cast his ballot in a southern suburb of the Afghan capital.
The 50-year-old was first in line to vote in Kart-e-Naw as Afghans lined up to take part in the nation’s parliamentary election, defying threats by the hardline Islamist rebels to wage attacks on polling day.
“I am voting because I want to show that the Taliban threat won’t stop us participating in the election,” he said.
Police were carrying out body searches at checkpoints across Kabul following a rocket attack on NATO headquarters in the capital and some other areas of the war-wracked country.
A massive security operation is in place for the vote, with more than 2,500 candidates vying for the 249 seats up for grabs in the second parliamentary election since the Taliban was toppled in the 2001 US-led invasion.
In Ghazni City, capital of the province of the same name south of Kabul, NATO helicopters patrolled the skies, an AFP reporter said.
Voting centers opened on time, but few people ventured out within the first hour of polling, the reporter said.
Afghan authorities have said that 63,000 soldiers and 52,000 police had been deployed to protect the election after the Taliban threatened to attack polling centers, election workers and security forces.
NATO, which along with the US has a force of 144,000 troops fighting the Taliban, has said it would be on standby in case of emergencies.
In Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar Province where Taliban influence has been intensifying in recent months, voters came out early to some centers.
Turnout began as a slow trickle after police said six rockets were fired on the city, though there was no report of damage or casualties.
An AFP reporter in Jalalabad said checkpoints had been set up at regular intervals on the city’s roads, with police stopping vehicles to perform body searches.
Those who did come to vote early said lawlessness and corruption were the main issues that concerned them.
“I want corruption to be rooted out,” Fairoz Khan, 67, said referring to the rampant graft that taints virtually every aspect of Afghan public life.
“I am here to use my vote in the hope that it will help build rule of law and the better implementation of law. It’s a sense of national responsibility which brings me here to vote,” Khan said.
An operation in Kunduz against militants led by coalition troops was under way, provincial Governor Mohammad Omar said.
“They killed five militants, two were wounded and one was arrested alive,” he said.
Insurgents also attacked a polling center on Friday 10km from the city center, although they were repelled by Afghan police and soldiers with no casualties, he said.
Few people were seen at polling centers in Kunduz City, the provincial capital, following the firing of “a few rockets over the city” before dawn, deputy provincial police chief Abdul Rehman Aqtash said.
In the south, all roads into and throughout Kandahar City — one of the most volatile in the country and the spiritual capital of the Taliban movement — were closed to traffic, residents said.
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