With two days to go until a presidential election already hit by deadly Taliban violence, Afghanistan is stepping up security nationwide.<br /><br />The Defence Ministry says nearly 200,000 police and troops are being deployed at polling stations.<br /><br />Mustafa Bag, our correspondent in Kabul, confirmed that police are on high alert, stopping and searching vehicles on all roads.<br /><br />The Taliban has vowed to do its utmost to disrupt Saturday’s vote, which will find a successor to President Hamid Karzai who is constitutionally barred from standing again. <br /><br />On Wednesday, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry in central Kabul, killing himself and at least six policemen.<br /><br />Taliban insurgents also killed nine civilians including a provincial council candidate in northern Afghanistan, local officials said.<br /><br />For Afghans, police checks of their cars are a price to pay in the name of safety.<br /><br />“I’m happy with these searches,” one man told our reporter in the capital. “I have some concerns about election security but we trust in God. And I am happy with how the police are treating us.”<br /><br />This is a key test for Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces, as most foreign troops prepare to pull out.<br /><br />Civilians have increasingly been caught up in the violence, with militants warning that they will be targeted if they try to vote this weekend.
