Afghans begin voting for new President

Millions of Afghans are expected to exercise their franchise as polling began on Thursday to choose the country's new president.

Streets in capital Kabul were mainly quiet and tense early on Thursday as Afghans awoke and headed to the polls for an anxiously awaited presidential election that Taliban fighters have vowed to disrupt with attacks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is hoping to win a second term in office, cast his ballot in a boys' high school near his heavily fortified palace in Kabul.

After casting his vote, he urged fellow citizens to come out and vote.

"I request my dear countrymen to come out and cast their vote to decide their future," he said. 

The election -- the second in Afghanistan's short history as a democracy -- is being held amid escalating violence.

On Tuesday, gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying a campaign manager for Afghan presidential candidate and former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, killing a driver and wounding the campaign manager.

Earlier this week, one of President Hamid Karzai's vice presidential running mates, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, escaped unharmed after Taliban insurgents opened fire on his convoy in northern Afghanistan.

In other violence Tuesday, a roadside bomb in southern Helmand province killed eight security guards and wounded four others.

Image: Afghan President Hamid Karzai casts his vote
Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters