04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

KABUL: The pace of life has returned to normal in Afghanistan. The children of Kabul are flying kites in the autumn wind, there is the usual hustle and bustle on the dusty streets of the city , and shoppers are haggling over prices in the markets as they have always done.

It is quiet on the capital's streets ahead of the scheduled presidential election on Saturday. Suspiciously quiet, if you ask security experts who say it could be the calm before the storm as Kabul waits anxiously to see if the Taliban's terror threats will become a reality.

Potential targets like the Afghan Election Commission have been converted into fortresses. Protective barriers have been hastily erected in front of many other buildings in reaction to warnings from the Taliban of a build-up in their attacks.

The former rulers of the country have threatened the lives of candidates, voters, foreign soldiers and above all anyone who supports the Afghan government. But until a serious car bomb attack at the end of August when several Americans were killed, Kabul had remained unscathed.

The security situation in Afghanistan has become increasingly worse in the past few months. Only Wednesday, three German and two Swiss soldiers were injured in an attack in Kundus.

Almost three years after the fall of the Taliban regime, people are dying in skirmishes and attacks every day. Aid organizations are leaving the country completely, or at least moving their foreign workers beyond Afghanistan's borders until after the election.

"It the worst time since the Taliban," said Nick Downie of the Afghanistan Non-governmental Organization Security Organization (ANSO). The international community and the Afghan people - but also the Taliban and other groups opposed to the government - are focusing all their attention on the election.

"The threats are very, very real. I predict they will become a reality in the next few days," Downie said. US security forces believe the Taliban plan to target their former stronghold of Kandahar and the capital Kabul.

The government which the rebels hate so much and the headquarters of the international security forces are located in the capital, and nowhere else in the country are there so many foreigners.

More and more foreign media correspondents are arriving in the city each day to cover the elections. Any attack at the heart of Afghanistan would immediately be broadcast to a world wide audience. But some, like German general Walter Spindler, commander of the multinational brigade of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), do not see any increase in the level of threat to Kabul and the surrounding area.

Spindler does, however, expect "attempts to hinder the voting process in the run up to the election and on election day itself". His troops would do all they could in order "to prevent this as much as is possible. But nobody can promise that 100 per cent, neither here nor anywhere else in the world," Spindler said.

Everyone agrees that the Taliban can no longer stop the polls, but the level of violence is raising fears over how free and fair the election can be. "The ordinary people of Afghanistan feel threatened," Downie said. Rebels are still fighting in many parts of the country, while war lords control large numbers of the population.

"There is a war being waged here. And I don't think free and fair elections are possible in a war zone," Downine said. Unlike many of the 18 presidential candidates, however, Downie is not calling for a postponement of the elections. Who knows when the situation will improve, and Afghanistan has to take its first steps towards democracy at some point, he said.

"We're talking about hesitant baby steps. The toddler could fall flat on his face, and perhaps he will need to be helped back to his feet," Downie said. "But he must take these steps to grow up." -dpa