PRE-ELECTION ATTACK KILLS ONE

Afghan Government Blames Drug Smugglers

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The Afghan government today blamed drug
smugglers - not Taliban or al-Qaida fighters - for a bomb attack on
interim leader Hamid Karzai's vice presidential running mate, saying
the country's landmark elections are a threat to their business.

The attack yesterday in the mountainous northeastern poppy-growing
region of Badakhshan killed one person and wounded at least five
others - including the former governor. Karzai's running mate, Ahmed
Zia Massood, was unharmed.

"I don't want to name anybody, but the evidence shows that it was the
work of drug smugglers because" the election "is against their
interests," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said.

Afghanistan holds its first direct presidential election on
Saturday.

Karzai is widely expected to emerge the winner from a large field of
candidates.

Yesterday, the last day of campaigning, two minor candidates dropped
out and threw their support behind the president. Still, with 16
people left in the race, it remains to be seen whether Karzai will be
able to reach the 50 percent majority necessary to avoid a runoff.

Karzai today praised his people for embracing the elections, despite
continued violence against election workers and ordinary citizens. He
acknowledged problems of rebel violence and warlord intimidation -
even some being carried out in his name - but said Afghanistan could
not wait forever to hold its vote.

"No election in the world is free of tension ... we all know that,"
Karzai said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Crop.
"Afghanistan will not be an exception."

Karzai has made it a point in his recent campaign rallies to tell
people to vote for him because they want to, not because someone has
told them to.

The revelation of drug ties to the attack on Massood was illustrative
of what might prove a time of transition in Afghanistan, from a
largely rebel and al-Qaida-based threat to one marked by the threat of
ever-more violent drug interests.

Heroin and opium production has boomed in Afghanistan since the fall
of the Taliban regime, which had been surprisingly successful at
enforcing a ban on cultivation. Officials say they believe the Taliban
- - now a rebel group - is benefiting from the drug trade, but warlords
allied to the government are also heavily involved.

There has been speculation drug traffickers might have had some hand
in an Aug. 28 car bombing that killed 10 people three of them American
outside a private U.S. security firm in Kabul. The Americans were
helping train anti-narcotics police. Taliban or al-Qaida militants are
also prime suspects in the blast.

U.N. surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the
world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion, more
than half of the nation's gross domestic product.

New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year.