Two GIs Die In Afghanistan

Interim leader Hamid Karzai widened his early lead Saturday in Afghanistan's landmark presidential election, but the deaths of two U.S. soldiers and three Afghan children in bomb attacks underscored that peace and security still elude much of the country.

Two rockets hit residences in the Afghan capital late Saturday, injuring one woman, police and witnesses said. Both rockets landed in a residential area of Kabul near its airport.

It was not clear who was behind the attacks - which come a week after the elections - but suspicion immediately fell on Taliban-led rebels.

On Monday, at least three rockets landed not far from the U.S. Embassy, killing one man and damaging the roof of a mud-brick house.

The reports of violence came as some 2,500 election staffers got back to work at eight counting centers across Afghanistan after a day off Friday to celebrate the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Of 209,000 votes tallied by early evening, Karzai, the U.S.-backed favorite, had captured 72 percent, though the preliminary result was based on just 2.6 percent of the ballots cast.

Final results from the election - Afghans' first opportunity to directly pick their leader - are expected at the end of October, although it should be clear who has won after about a week.

Karzai strongly condemned an assault Friday in eastern Kunar province in which a truck was reportedly set on fire and then a remote-controlled bomb detonated, killing at least three children and a policeman. He described it as a terrorist atrocity committed by "enemies of Islam."

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said a homemade bomb hit an American Humvee jeep on patrol in the southern province of Uruzgan on Thursday, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, one of them critically.

While polling day, Oct. 9, was mostly peaceful despite threats by Taliban-led rebels to sabotage the vote, their insurgency still simmers in the country's lawless south and east. Nearly 1,000 people, many of them insurgents, have died in political violence this year in the run-up to the poll.

In Washington, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the election was a triumph for Afghans and international forces protecting them, but only one step on the road to stability.

"It could take as long as 10 years for it to be a truly successful country in terms of security, in terms of economic development, in terms of being a successful democratic state," Khalilzad told reporters Friday.

Khalilzad also suggested that training the new Afghan national army could be accelerated to reduce the need for U.S. and NATO troops. The current plan is to bring the Afghan army up to 70,000 troops from the current 15,000 in five years.

Afghans are aching for peace after conflicts dating back to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, and the U.N.-backed election, which cost about US$200 million to stage, has generated huge interest.

A top election official has estimated that despite Taliban intimidation and bad weather, about 8 million of the 10.5 million registered voters cast ballots. Counting began Thursday after five days of delays as a panel of foreign experts probed electoral fraud allegations submitted by the 16 candidates.

Of 209,297 valid votes tallied in 12 of the 34 provinces, Karzai won 150,738 or 72 percent of the total, the official election Web site said.

Former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni had 12.8 percent, ahead of ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum with 6.9 percent.

At the Kabul counting center, set up in a half-built Afghan army barracks, observers for the candidates were watching the count closely.

Abdul Qudus Sayeq, a representative of Qanooni, alleged that ballot boxes had been stuffed in favor of Karzai and ballots cast for Qanooni had been deliberately spoiled - but was unable to explain where or when this happened.

"We've seen lots of papers marked with different pens" from the ones issued to polling stations, he said. "The new marks are all in favor of one candidate."

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the last of the ballot boxes - which have been transported from far-flung areas by plane, helicopter, truck and even donkey - were expected to reach counting centers by Sunday.

Karzai has led the predominantly Muslim country since the U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001. Many Afghans see him as a bridge to the country's international backers and a leader untainted by the fighting. But they are impatient for him to deliver on pledges to rebuild their impoverished country.