Six people injured in pre-election violence in Afghanistan

KABUL (AFP) - Six people were injured in a string of attacks in southeastern Afghanistan as the war-shattered country prepared for its first-ever presidential elections, officials said.
Two suspected militants loyal to the ousted hardline Islamic Taliban regime were wounded on Thursday after attacking a police patrol in southeastern Kandahar province, interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.
A police officer and a civilian caught in the crossfire were injured during a brief gunfight with insurgents in Samkanay, a troubled district on the Afghan-Pakistani border, he added.
The attacks came as militants rocketed several cities and military outposts in southern and eastern Afghanistan, injuring at least two civilians near a US military base in the Taliban's spiritual home of Kandahar, Mashal said.
One of more than two dozen rockets fired around the country exploded early Friday above the US-led military headquarters in the capital Kabul.
The attacks came hard on the heels of an assassination attempt on US-backed President Hamid Karzai's running mate on Wednesday and the wounding of two US soldiers in a bomb blast in southeast Afghanistan on Thursday.
The Taliban, who were deposed after a US invasion in 2001, and their allies from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terror group have vowed to disrupt Saturday's polls, which Karzai is tipped to win.
In Kandahar, police detained three suspects who were carrying explosives in a truck on Friday, local police official, Mohammad Salim said.
"Police and coalition forces are investigating the case," he told AFP by telephone.
Officials have warned that cities face the threat of car-bombs, while armed assaults could hit some of the 5,000 polling stations scattered throughout Afghanistan's rugged landscape.
A total of 100,000 security personnel are deployed around the country to protect voters, the interior ministry said.
They include more than 18,000 US-led troops, mainly operating along the 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) Afghan-Pakistani border where militants are most active. Some 9,000 NATO-led peacekeeping forces are also in Afghanistan.
"There is no doubt that the Taliban will make attempts to disrupt the polls," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told reporters in Kabul.
Mashal said that on Friday police raided a compound in Kabul where they believed "terrorists" were hiding. No arrests were made but police seized 16 motorcycles which they suspect were for terrorist use.
The Taliban claimed to have killed several US and Afghan soldiers this week, according to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency.
Taliban spokesman Mufti Lateefullah Hakeemi told the agency 10 Afghan soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in Kandahar province Thursday and that eight US soldiers were killed in Zabul province on Wednesday.
US and Afghan authorities regularly dismiss such claims by the Taliban.