Afghan poll recount to take months as Karzai faces new fraud claims

Afghanistan's presidential election was plunged into fresh chaos today as results giving Hamid Karzai an outright majority were overshadowed by new fraud claims.

Results from more than 90 per cent of the country's polling stations showed incumbent president Mr Karzai had 54.1 per cent of the votes, pushing him over the halfway threshold that would allow him to avoid a run-off with his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

But the commission overseeing the poll said hundreds of polling stations' results were disputed and ordered a recount.

The chief electoral officer of the Afghan-run Independent Election Commission, Daoud Ali Najafi, said that recounting votes could take "two or three months".

The commission has already quarantined ballots from more than 600 polling stations ruled to have been spoiled or tainted by fraud, out of more than 26,000 polling stations.

All are to be examined by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which has had more than 720 major fraud charges lodged with it.

The move overshadowed Mr Karzai's apparent progress towards victory.

As more results have come in from the south, where Mr Karzai's support is strong, former foreign minister Mr Abdullah's standing has slipped to 28.3 per cent of the vote.

Western officials say ballots have been submitted from hundreds of fake sites.

The election commission has found dozens of voting sites where Mr Karzai won neatly rounded blocks of ballots — 200, 300 and 500 votes — which one official labelled "illogical".

Four American servicemen were killed in an attack in east Afghanistan, the US military said today.