Hamid Karzai

Kabul, Oct. 24 (Reuters): Hamid Karzai?s main rival for the Afghan presidency conceded defeat on Sunday with less than 6 per cent of the vote count remaining.

A spokesperson said Yunus Qanuni would accept Karzai?s victory despite irregularities in the October 9 election ? Afghanistan?s first ever direct presidential ballot.

?We accept in the interests of the nation, because we don?t want to face another crisis,? Sayed Hamid Noori said when asked if Qanuni was conceding.

The move comes a day after an American woman and an Afghan girl died from wounds suffered in a Taliban suicide attack in a popular Kabul shopping street.

With under 6 per cent of the votes left to count, incumbent Karzai remained on course to win a simple majority to avoid a run-off against the second-placed Qanuni with 16.2 per cent.

?They should be finished by today and by tomorrow, probably the total boxes would have been finished and reconciled and counted,? said Reginald Austin, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body?s technical and logistics operations.

Several ballot boxes were set aside for an investigation into complaints of ballot-stuffing and multiple voting, but the UN spokesperson said an investigative panel recommended most of them should be released for counting.

The suicide attack on Chicken Street followed a lull in militant activity over the past couple of months as US-led troops, international peacekeepers and Afghan forces stepped up security ahead of the October 9 poll.

Three Icelandic soldiers serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and two other Afghan civilians were among the wounded when the attacker detonated a string of grenades strapped to his waist, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Poulain, spokesperson for the Nato-led mission.

A Taliban spokesperson claimed responsibility for the attack. Witnesses said the attacker was disguised as a beggar as he roamed Chicken Street, popular with foreigners shopping for carpets, jewellery and antiques.

The US embassy confirmed an American had been killed in the blast but was unable to release further details, though other media reported the dead woman was in her early twenties and worked for a translation company. The Afghan girl was between 10 and 12 years old, according to hospital workers.

Karzai?s share of the vote has slipped to 55.3 per cent after holding around 60 per cent for most of the time since counting began. But votes from several provinces dominated by fellow ethnic Pashtuns had still to be tallied, giving Karzai?s camp confidence that the slip was a temporary blip.

Perceived as handpicked by Washington since being placed at the head of an interim government after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Karzai was hoping for a mandate that will improve his credentials as a leader to all of Afghanistan?s ethnic groups.