Naadem & Khpalwak
KANDAHAR CITY/TIRINKOT: At least 11 people including six girls were killed in separate attacks on Election Day in restive southern Afghanistan.
U.S. Marines carry a box full of presidential ballots delivered by Marine helicopters from election headquarters in Lashkar Gah to election officials in Dahaneh, Aug. 20, 2009, in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. Officials in the village had discovered early in the morning that they were lacking any presidential ballots and could not open the voting process without them. (Photo: Getty Images)
The first incident occurred in Kandahar City, where a rocket hit a home, leaving six girls of a family dead. The attack took place at around 1pm in the Hindu intersection area.
Resident Najiba told Pajhwok Afghan News the rocket launched by Taliban insurgents, who have vowed to disrupt the historic elections, hit the house of a poor man. The site was cordoned off by security personnel, she added.
A local security official confided told this reporter they were under instructions not to provide information on the incident to media until 5pm.
Elsewhere in the south, five civilians were killed in separate missile attacks in Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, an official said. District chief Sardar Wali added polling centres in central parts were open while remote centres were closed,.
Twenty percent of the residents, issued with voter registration cards, did not go to voting areas. According to security officials in the province, rockets fired by the "enemies of Afghanistan, landed in Khas Uruzgan and Chora districts.