Afghans foil plan to disrupt vote

Afghan authorities arrested 60 Taliban guerillas who were planning to derail the upcoming presidential election, officials said yesterday, as campaigning intensified for the poll in a week's time.

President Hamid Karzai's deputies and his main opponent hit the election trail. But Karzai, almost invisible during the campaign amid security concerns, prepared to go to Germany to receive an award.

Sayed Fazluddin Agha, a senior official in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan, said the guerillas were intercepted on Friday as they slipped across the frontier.

"Their aim was to target voting centres and government troops in Helmand and Uruzgan provinces," he said. "During the initial investigation, we found they were planning to attack the elections."

Helmand and Uruzgan are both in the south of the country and are part of the stronghold of the Taliban, who were ousted from power by US-led forces in 2001 for failing to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The US military, leading 18,000 troops hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, also said it had thwarted planned attacks aimed at disrupting the country's first ever direct presidential vote, but warned of more violence to come.

NATO-led international peacekeepers helped Afghan security services detain 25 people with "reported ties" to Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Islamic militant allies near Kabul yesterday, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force said.