In other Afghan news, at least seven people were killed in a NATO bombing hours after the polls closed. The US-led NATO force says the victims were Taliban militants, but local residents said at least some, if not all, of the dead were civilians. One man said he had just helped an elderly victim cast his vote in the elections earlier that day.

Villager: “The government asked us to come and vote to put a candidate in parliament, but why are they bombing us? Yesterday I carried this old man to cast his vote, and this is the result: they dropped a bomb on him.”