KABUL: Afghans choose a president today in an election the U.S. hopes can build a government strong enough to turn around a war with Taliban Islamic militants that is killing more foreign troops and Afghans than ever.

While President Hamid Karzai faces a divided opposition and is likely to be re-elected, spiraling violence and economic stagnation mean he may not be strengthened politically. The Taliban have intensified their attacks this week, with a suicide bombing on a military convoy and rockets fired at the presidential palace.

“Afghanistan and its government may emerge from this election weaker than before, not stronger,” said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research & Policy Studies.

Over nearly eight years, Karzai and his international backers have failed to contain the fighting or fulfill Afghans’ hopes for an economic recovery from three decades of war. Measured by income, life expectancy and literacy, Afghanistan is the world’s fifth-poorest country, according to a 2007 report by the Afghan government and the United Nations.

Afghans “don’t feel the relevance for their daily lives” of either the government or elections, Mir said.

In the 65,000-strong U.S.-led coalition, 281 troops have been killed this year, a rate 50 percent higher than last year’s record, according to the monitoring group Casualties. More than 1,000 civilians were killed through June, 20 percent more than last year’s record high, United Nations figures show.

The election is a key step as President Barack Obama shifts America’s national security focus, and U.S. troops, from Iraq to Afghanistan. The U.S. has taken pains to say it neither favors nor opposes Karzai, who many Afghans say is in power because of his international backing. LINK