Afghans defy Taliban threats to vote in large numbers

Afghans voted in large numbers today to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power as US-led forces end their 13-year war.
Despite Taliban threats, voting was largely peaceful with long queues in cities across the country as voters cast their ballots at around 6,000 centres under tight security.
The Taliban had rejected the election as a foreign plot and urged their fighters to target polling staff, voters and security forces, but there were no major attacks reported during the day.
The head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani told AFP turnout was better than expected, without giving figures, but lower in rural districts than cities.

"We have had reports of ballot papers running low in some areas and have ordered regional and provincial centres to supply extra material," he said.
Polling stations started to close at 5:00 pm, though officials said that people already in line would still be allowed to vote.

In Kabul, hit by a series of deadly attacks during the election campaign, hundreds of people lined up in the open air to vote despite heavy rain and the insurgents' promise of violence.
"I'm not afraid of Taliban threats, we will die one day anyway. I want my vote to be a slap in the face of the Taliban," housewife Laila Neyazi, 48, told AFP.

Poll security was a major concern following the attacks in Kabul, most recently a suicide bombing on Wednesday that killed six police officers.
But a fatal blast was reported in Logar province, south of Kabul, where one person was killed and two wounded according to Mohammad Agha district chief Abdul Hameed Hamid.
IEC chief Nuristani said attacks or fear of violence had forced 211 of a total 6,423 voting centres to remain closed.
The day before the poll Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was shot dead by a police commander in eastern Khost province.
She was the third journalist working for international media to be killed during the election campaign, after Swedish journalist Nils Horner and Sardar Ahmad of Agence France-Presse.

Interior Minister Omar Daudzai said all 400,000 of Afghanistan's police, army and intelligence services were being deployed to ensure security around the country.