Karzai passes 50% mark in Afghan vote

       President Hamid Karzai surpassed for the first time the 50%threshold needed to avoid a run-off in Afghanistan's presidential election,according to preliminary results released yesterday.
       But with allegations of fraud on the rise, a UN-backed commission ordered a re-count of tainted ballots.
       The chief electoral officer of the Afghan-run Independent Election Commission, Daoud Ali Najafi, said that recounting votes could take "two or three months", meaning the already over-extended election is far from over.
       With results in from almost 92% of the country's polling sites, Mr Karzai has 54.1% of the votes, pushing him over the threshold that would allow him to declare victory outright and avoid a run-off with his main challenger,Abdullah Abdullah.
       As more results have come in from the south, where Mr Karzai's support is strong, former foreign minister Abdullah's standing has slipped dramatically. Mr Abdullah now has 28.3%of the vote.
       But doubts are growing about the credibility of the election.
       The Afghan-run election 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. The results announced yesterday discount those ballots. The UNbacked Electoral Complaints Commission will investigate and determine their validity.
       Separately, the Electoral Complaints Commission, a separate UN-backed body charged with investigating the vote, ordered a re-count yesterday at polling stations where it had found "convincing evidence" of fraud, meaning Mr Karzai could still have votes taken away from him. More than 720 major fraud charges have been lodged with the complaints commission.
       Nato admits airstrike killed civilians
       Nato-led forces acknowledged for the first time yesterday that Afghan civilians were killed in a Germanordered airstrike last week on two stolen fuel tankers, and the top commander appointed a team to investigate.
       German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that her government won't accept "premature judgments"about the incident. Germany's military has been criticised for calling in last week's strike by a US jet on two hijacked tanker trucks in Kunduz province and for initially insisting that it appeared only militants were killed. Local officials have said civilians were among more than 50 killed, but there have been conflicting claims over how many.
       A statement yesterday from the Natoled force said that commanders originally believed the tankers were surrounded only by Taliban insurgents,but that a subsequent review showed "civilians also were killed and injured in the strike".
       Previously, officials had said only that civilians may have been wounded.
       The top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, appointed a Canadian major-general to lead the investigation.A US air force officer and a German officer are also on the investigating team. The incident involved both German and US forces.