KABUL, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - Polls to elect a president and provincial council members started in Afghanistan early on Thursday, with a low turnout expected due to a series of militant attacks in the capital.
The presidential election is the second since the U.S. military ousted the Taliban in 2001.
Of 30 presidential candidates, the incumbent Afghan leader Hamid Karzai leads the opinion polls with around 45% of support. His two main challengers are former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani.
Taliban leaders have denounced the elections as illegal, and threatened to disrupt voting across the country. Three insurgents were shot dead by Afghan security forces on Thursday morning after entering a bank with explosives.
A military source in Kabul told RIA Novosti that within the first hour of voting, seven bomb blasts had occurred in the city. However, he did not have information on casualties.
"These were not suicide bombers, but bombs planted in garbage bags and boxes, left near voting stations," he said.
In a national address, Karzai earlier urged people to vote "for the sake of the happiness and prosperity of the motherland." He played down the Taliban's threat to disrupt voting.
The Afghan electoral authority told RIA Novosti that around 7,000 polling stations would be opened throughout the country, home to around 25 million people. The polls will be monitored by 21 local and 30 foreign observers.
