Taleban attacks Tuesday rocked Afghanistan, including heart of the capital Kabul, two days before elections. Suicide bombers killed more than 12 people, including UN staff and NATO troops, and a rocket slammed into the presidential compound. The Taleban have threatened to sabotage Thursday's ballot when 17 million Afghans will elect a president, though there are fears many voters could stay away. A suicide car bomb ripped through a busy road used frequently by NATO and US troops, near a US military base and a bustling market, killing seven Afghan civilians and wounding around another 50, officials said. Both Afghan civilians and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) service members were killed and wounded in the blast as the vehicle exploded near an ISAF convoy, said the NATO-led force. The United Nations announced that two of its local Afghan staff were among the dead and that a third was wounded. Most of the victims were civilians, children included in the attack targeting a supply convoy of foreign forces, police said. Militants earlier fired volleys of rockets into the capital and the eastern city of Jalalabad, wounding at least 10 people, mostly women and children. A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said one rocket hit the outer perimeter of the presidential compound. In southern Afghanistan, the Taleban's main powerbase, a suicide bomber walked up to an Afghan military checkpoint in Uruzgan province Tuesday and blew himself up, killing three soldiers and two civilians, police said. A roadside bomb blast killed two US soldiers and wounded three others in eastern Afghanistan – APPotential for fraud EU observers in Afghanistan have become aware of irregularities ahead of Afghanistan's presidential election, particularly regarding the distribution of women's voting cards, EU Commission spokesman John Clancy said Tuesday. “This creates a potential for fraud but it is important to see what happens on Election Day Thursday.” He said “the observers may well be witness to fraud in polling centeres, and will listen to allegations in the field.” The EU Observation Mission is looking at the safeguards in place to make sure, for example, that voters' fingers are dipped into “good quality ink” that cannot be washed off, to prevent double voting. The EU has some 67 observers from 25 countries, backed up by a further 50 on the day of the poll. – AgenciesBackers alarmedKarzai's reliance on ex-militia leaders has raised alarm among his international backers worried that warlords could return to power in the country they dominated for decades. The United States and the United Nations have both expressed concern that warlord Dostum could return to government. Washington said he may have been responsible for human rights violations.Poll securityWestern troops will maintain outer perimeter security during the election, with Afghan soldiers and police guarding towns and polling stations. More than 30,000 extra US troops have arrived in Afghanistan this year, raising the total number of Western troops above 100,000 for the first time, including 62,000 Americans.Second round seen Polls show incumbent Hamid Karzai is likely to win Thursday's vote, but not with the outright majority required to avoid a second round in six weeks. The president is relying on the last-minute support of former guerrilla chieftains in a bid to tip the balance. Recent polls give Karzai about 45 percent of the vote to 25 percent for his main rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai is from the majority Pashtun ethnic group. Abdullah, an urbane eye doctor, is of Pashtun-Tajik ethnicity. Karzai has secured the last-minute endorsements of some former militia chieftains, hoping they help secure a first round victory. One chieftain, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek militia leader who won 10 percent of the vote in 2004, returned to the country from exile in Turkey and held a huge pro-Karzai rally in his northern home city of Shiberghen, Monday. __
