By JEROME STARKEY in Lashkar Gah and Tom Newton Dunn Defence Editor
THE polls were open for less than 20 minutes when the first Taliban rocket smashed into Lashkar Gah yesterday.
An instant later a teenage boy lay dying in the road - his shoe and hat nearby.
He perished a few yards from the edge of a football field where residents of the Helmand provincial capital were arriving to cast their votes.
The attack was the beginning of a Taliban bombardment designed to frighten people away from the polling stations.
But, despite the killing of 26 Afghans - including civilians, soldiers and police - the merciless attempts to intimidate the country failed.
Police were still hosing the boy’s blood from the concrete as dozens of burkha-clad women began queuing to have their say in the presidential and provincial elections.
Their defiance of the insurgents’ threats was reflected across the country, although the turnout was down from the first free voting in 2004. (Read more)
