AFGHAN ELECTION Drug trade is blamed for attack on vice presidential candidate

Surveys show the country accounted for most of the world's opium last year.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan government blamed drug smugglers today -- not Taliban or Al-Qaida fighters -- for a bomb attack on interim leader Hamid Karzai's vice presidential running mate, saying the country's landmark elections are a threat to their business.
The attack Wednesday in the mountainous northeastern poppy-growing region of Badakhshan killed one person and wounded at least five others -- including the former governor. Karzai's running mate, Ahmed Zia Massood, was unharmed.
"I don't want to name anybody, but the evidence shows that it was the work of drug smugglers, because this process [the election] is against their interests," said Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali.
Milestone election
Afghanistan holds its first direct presidential election Saturday.
Karzai is widely expected to emerge the winner from a large field of candidates. On Wednesday, the last day of campaigning, two minor candidates dropped out and threw their support behind the president. Still, with 16 people left in the race, it remains to be seen whether Karzai will be able to reach the 50 percent majority necessary to avoid a runoff.
Karzai today praised his people for embracing the elections, despite continued violence against election workers and ordinary citizens. He acknowledged problems of rebel violence and warlord intimidation -- even some being carried out in his name -- but said Afghanistan could not wait forever to hold its vote.
"No election in the world is free of tension ... we all know that," Karzai said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Crop. "Afghanistan will not be an exception."
Free voting
Karzai has made it a point in his recent campaign rallies to tell people to vote for him because they want to, not because someone has told them to.
The revelation of drug ties to the attack on Massood was illustrative of what might prove a time of transition in Afghanistan, from a largely rebel and Al-Qaida-based threat, to one marked by the threat of ever-more violent drug interests.
Heroin and opium production has boomed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime, which had been surprisingly successful at enforcing a ban on cultivation. Officials say they believe the Taliban -- now a rebel group -- is benefiting from the drug trade, but warlords allied to the government are also heavily involved.
There has been speculation that drug traffickers might have had some hand in an Aug. 28 car bombing outside a private U.S. security firm in Kabul, which killed 10 people -- three of them American. The Americans were helping to train anti-narcotics police. Taliban or Al-Qaida militants also are prime suspects in the blast.
U.N. surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion, more than half the nation's gross domestic product.
More this year
New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year.
Northeastern Badakhshan, bordering Tajikistan, China and Pakistan, is far from the Taliban strongholds of southern and eastern Afghanistan. Its rugged terrain is covered by poppy fields, and the government has been unable to do much to curb production.
The attack was the third against Karzai and his political allies since campaigning began on Sept. 7. The president survived a rocket assault on his helicopter on Sept. 16 in the eastern city of Gardez, and one of his four current vice presidents survived a bomb attack four days later. The Taliban was suspected in those attacks.
The Taliban has kept up a drumbeat of violence, but so far has not succeeded in launching a high-impact assault that could derail the vote.
Jalali said Afghan forces had thwarted at least 20 attacks and arrested more than 100 people since the start of the campaign, but that the rebels had managed more than 60 rocket or bomb attacks during the period, most in the provinces.
He put the death toll at more than 60 -- including 15 civilians, 19 security forces and 30 suspected rebels. In addition, six Afghan troops were taken hostage.