Taliban bombers, some disguised as women with suicide vests hidden under their burkas, stormed government buildings near Kabul in a brazen attack just 10 days before a presidential election.
Gun battles lasted for hours Monday and smoke poured from blasted buildings in Pul-e-Alam, capital of Logar province, about an hour's drive from Kabul. Three policemen and two civilians were killed, along with six militants, said Deen Mohammad Darwish, spokesman for the provincial governor.
It was the latest in a series of assaults in the run-up to the Aug. 20 election. The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the poll, and the United Nations says spiralling violence threatens to keep many Afghans from voting.
Mr. Darwish said two of the suicide bombers had blown themselves up outside a government building. Four seized the building and were eventually killed in hours of gun battle with police, three of them detonating their vests as police fired at them.
Residents said they feared more violence to come.
"Things will only get worse with the election," shopkeeper Faizal Ahmad said. "We will have no security in the future."
A United States-funded opinion poll put President Hamid Karzai ahead, but not by enough to ensure avoiding a second-round runoff.
The poll, conducted by Washington-based Glevum Associates, gave Mr. Karzai 45 per cent of the vote among decided voters, against 25 per cent for his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Other candidates had support in the single digits.
Even as the attack in Logar was under way, Mr. Karzai repeated a promise to invite the Taliban and other militants to an assembly of tribal chiefs in a peace overture if re-elected. The pledge won applause from a crowd of followers.
Mr. Karzai has made a push for peace talks one of his main campaign pledges. The Taliban say it will not join talks unless foreign troops leave the country.
The Taliban last month vowed to disrupt the election, calling on Afghans to boycott it. There has been a spate of ambushes on candidates, campaign workers and election officials.
While Taliban attacks are up, fewer civilians were killed by air strikes in Afghanistan last month, even as U.S. and NATO forces pushed deep into Taliban territory, driving clashes and Western casualties higher.
Western and Afghan officials say the drop appears to be an early indication of success for restrictions on air power imposed in July by General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of coalition forces, in an attempt to limit civilian casualties. The U.S. and NATO saw Afghan anger over the deaths as a major impediment to a new counterinsurgency strategy that makes winning over the population a higher priority than killing insurgents.
Six civilians died in air strikes last month compared to 89 in July, 2008, according to an Associated Press count of reports on civilian deaths by witnesses and Afghan officials. None of the reports was the subject of significant dispute by the U.S. and NATO.
A single mishap could send civilian deaths up again this month, dashing Western hopes of any real downward trend. But Afghan civilians and officials say the lower death toll for July mirrors a broader reduction in the accidental bombing of nonmilitary targets.
"When the Taliban are moving in our village, we are scared, but the good thing is there has been no bombing of civilian homes," said Baz Mohammad, a grape farmer from Nilgham village in Kandahar province. "A few months ago, there was bombing every day in our district."
Western military officials attribute the drop in large part to less powerful and more carefully targeted air strikes.
"A very good and positive change has come in the past two months," said Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi. "The coalition are very careful now in using bombs. ... I hope it will continue."