Photo Gallery Casting Their Votes
Just after the opening of the polls, journalists flee the site of a gunfight between insurgents and Afghan police in the capital city Kabul.
Afghan workers carry ballot boxes at a polling station in Kandahar in preparation for Thursday's vote.
How to vote: Two Afghan men look at a poster showing how to cast the vote ahead of elections in Kandahar.
Security measures: A heavily armed police officer stands guard in Kabul as votes are cast.
Security on Thursday was reinforced along the streets of the Afghan capital Kabul.
Lining up to vote: Afghan citizens living in Pakistan line up at the border to their home country so they can participate in the election.
An Afghan man guides a donkey carrying election supplies to a rural polling station in Sighawar in Afghanistan's mountainous Panjshir Province.
Heavily armed Taliban fighters: The radical Islamists called on Afghan citizens to boycott the election and threatened attacks.
The favorite: Incumbent President Hamid Karzai is seen here after casting his vote in Kabul. As with all who voted, his index finger was marked with indelible ink. The measure is intended to prevent people from voting twice. Karzai asked fellow Afghans to do the same.
An Afghan woman chooses her candidate in a polling booth at a school converted into a polling center in Herat.
Many of the voting booths were built simply using cardboard.
Queueing up: Women in Kabul line up in front of a polling station and wait to cast their votes.
Turnout in Kabul was strong.
An Afghan soldier gestures to drivers at a checkpost in Kandahar.
