U.S. - Taliban torn over failure to disrupt Afghan election

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has fallen out with some of his lieutenants, who blame him for the rebels' failure to disrupt the landmark Afghan presidential election, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Election officials, meanwhile, said U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai could all but seal a victory Thursday as vote counting proceeds from an Oct. 9 ballot that came off largely peacefully.

A U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Scott Nelson, said intelligence reports from Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan indicated the Taliban's failure to mount major attacks during the election had demoralized the rebels.

"There's been serious disagreements between Mullah Omar and some of his lower commanders on the strategy for the follow-up after the election," Nelson said. "There's a lot of frustration with his lack of effectiveness in disrupting the election."

Omar, whose hardline Islamic regime harbored Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida followers, has been in hiding since a U.S.-led military campaign ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001. The rebels have mounted repeated attacks over the past year on government and coalition targets.

Nelson said intelligence indicated Omar was still involved in planning Taliban operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but conceded the military didn't know in which of the two countries the one-eyed rebel leader was hiding.

The U.S. military, which has 18,000 soldiers hunting al-Qaida and Taliban holdouts in Afghanistan, has hailed the election as a body blow to the rebels because their threats to sabotage the vote proved hollow.

An estimated 8 million Afghans turned out to vote, and Karzai appears set to become the country's first directly leader after a quarter-century of conflict.

With half the ballots counted Wednesday, Karzai had 59.8 percent of the vote and held a 42-point lead over his nearest challenger, former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni.

Reginald Austin, chief technical adviser to the election's U.N. and Afghan organizers, said one more day of counting should all but ensure that Karzai emerges the winner -- barring a major shock from an investigation by foreign experts into allegations of electoral fraud brought by Karzai's challengers.

"By Thursday, we should be able to make a sufficient determination," Austin told The Associated Press.

However, Ray Kennedy, deputy chairman of the Joint Electoral Management Body, stressed that the board would announce the outcome only after all the votes are counted and the probe into alleged irregularities is complete.

At the current rate, vote counting could be finished by early next week, but the investigation could take longer.

The panel of three foreign experts was called in after accusations of fraud on polling day, especially after problems with ink used to mark voters' fingers in an effort to prevent people from casting more than one ballot.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the panel had visited counting centers in Kabul and Gardez in eastern Afghanistan and spoken to candidates and Afghan and international election observers. He said the probe could be completed and made public in "one more week or so, perhaps."

In addition, the election board is working through 285 formal complaints submitted in ballot boxes. About 45 percent of complaints were about the ink used, and others concerned polling station personnel and underage voters.

Karzai's campaign team was confident of victory. He was doing strongly in southern and eastern regions dominated by his fellow Pashtun tribesmen. But ethnic Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek candidates outscored him across much of the north and center, perpetuating the country's damaging ethnic divide.

Results posted Wednesday evening said 4.08 million votes had been counted, including at least partial returns from all 34 provinces and from Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran.

Karzai had 2,438,761 votes, or 59.8 percent. Qanooni, a Tajik, was second at 17.2 percent. Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq and Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum both had 8.3 percent.

Mohaqeq claimed that up to 15 percent of Karzai's support came from multiple voting or from men casting ballots for their wives and daughters -- disallowed under the rules.

Qanooni's running mate, Taj Mohammed Wardak, reiterated Wednesday that his camp would only accept the result if the panel of foreign experts acknowledged some fraud occurred.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Graham and Amir Shah contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Afghan election results: http://www.afg-electionresults.org