Afganistan historical days ping.
An Afghan police looks at a damaged car from Ahmed Zia Massood's convoy outside the Afghan government office in Faizabad, 320 km (200 miles) northeast of Kabul, Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004. A convoy carrying Afghan President Hamid Karzai's vice presidential running mate was attacked in Badakhshan province Wednesday. Ahmed Zia Massood was unhurt, one person was killed and five others were injured in the roadside explosion. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Afghans make their way past Herat's historic minarets built more than 500 years ago in Herat, northwestern Afghanistan Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004. Afghanistan's first direct presidential elections will be held on October 9. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian)
Supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai drum and dance during a campaign rally at the Kabul stadium Wednesday Oct. 6, 2004. Afghans will go to the polls on Oct. 9 in the country's first ever direct elections. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Relatives of Hamid Karzai, stand otuside the home where Karzai was born, he hasn't set foot in his Afghan village for years, but the residents are still cheering for its most famous son in Saturday's landmark election, and hoping a big payday will follow in his native town of Karz, a parched village of a few hundred mud houses on the edge of the main southern city of Kandahar, Afghanistan (news - web sites) Monday Oct. 4, 2004. His former home lies amid a maze of ruins in what was the center of the village until it was devastated in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Karzai's humble roots may have helped him develop a common touch that marks him out from some of his 17 rivals in the race to become Afghanistan's first popularly elected president. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel)
Local children run from a helicopter after it unloaded the ballot kits in Ghumaipayan Mahnow village some 410 kilometers (256 miles) northeast of Kabul, Monday, Oct. 4, 2004. By air is the only way to deliver the electoral material in the inaccessible areas of the Badakhshan province. A helicopter distributed on Monday 84 ballot boxes and electoral kits in 24 remote villages near Tajikistan's border to hold its first direct presidential vote on Oct. 9. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Thanks and nice job. Please ping me on anything "A-Stan" (As I'm told that is how the soldiers refer to that beautiful country).
(Kabul, Afghanistan-AP, Oct. 7, 2004 1:34 PM) _ Drug smugglers -- not the Taliban -- were behind an attack on interim leader Hamid Karzai's vice presidential running-mate, the government said Thursday.
One man was killed and five people were wounded in Wednesday's bombing, including the former governor of Badakhshan, a mountainous northeastern poppy-growing region. Karzai's running-mate, Ahmed Zia Massood, was unhurt.
Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said "the evidence shows that it was the work of drug smugglers, because this process (the election) is against their interests."
Karzai is widely expected to win Saturday's election, and he has said he will use his power as president to crack down on drug barons and warlords. He has 15 rivals, after two minor candidates withdrew Wednesday and threw their support behind Karzai.
Still, it remains to be seen whether Karzai will be able to reach the 50 percent majority necessary to avoid a runoff, which could take weeks to organize and carries with it the threat of more violence.
Some 10.5 million Afghans registered to vote out of an estimated population of 25 million. The country has not had a reliable census in decades.
Karzai praised his people for embracing the elections, despite the bloodshed. He acknowledged problems of rebel violence and warlord intimidation -- even some being carried out in his name -- but said Afghanistan could not wait forever for a vote.
"No election in the world is free of tension ... we all know that," Karzai told the British Broadcasting Corp. "Afghanistan will not be an exception."
Karzai has made it a point in his recent campaign rallies to tell people to vote for him because they want to, not because someone has told them to.
Heroin and opium production has boomed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
There has been speculation that drug traffickers might have had a hand in an Aug. 28 car bombing in Kabul that killed 10 people, including three Americans training anti-narcotics police. Taliban or al-Qaida militants also are suspects in the blast.
Wednesday's attack was the third against Karzai and his allies since campaigning began Sept. 7. The president survived a rocket assault on his helicopter on Sept. 16, and one of his four vice presidents survived a bomb attack four days later. The Taliban was suspected in those attacks.
Jalali said Afghan forces have thwarted at least 20 attacks and arrested more than 100 people during the election campaign, but rebels managed more than 60 rocket or bomb attacks. He put the death toll at more than 60.
