Afghan election to deploy donkeys

About 3,000 donkeys will carry ballots and voting boxes to the most inaccessible regions of Afghanistan for presidential elections in August, officials in Kabul said Tuesday.

The burros will be deployed along the steep ridges of the Hindu Kush mountain range, which bisects Afghanistan, areas that trucks and even helicopters cannot reach.

Meanwhile, a top UN official in Afghanistan warned that the elections will be the most complicated he has ever seen. About 17 million people are eligible to vote Aug. 20.

His remarks came as a gunman opened fire on a campaign team for former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, killing one campaign worker Tuesday  in eastern Afghanistan. Abdullah is the top challenger to President Hamid Karzai.

Of prime concern is how to hold polls in the turbulent south and east, where U.S., British and Canadian forces have been battling the Taliban. Violence in the area has reached its highest level since 2001.

Security forces have not yet confirmed whether voting will be able to take place in about 700 of 7,000 polling centres planned across the country, said Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission.

Canada has more than 2,000 soldiers based in the southern province of Kandahar. Since 2002, 125 Canadian soldiers have been killed serving in Afghanistan. One diplomat and two aid workers have also been killed.