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WASHINGTON (AFP) – A senior aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai has for the first time conceded that disputed elections could enter a second round and pushed to hold the run-off quickly.Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, said Thursday he has not personally spoken to election authorities who are expected to make an announcement within days.

Karzai has passionately rejected charges of widespread irregularities, testing the patience of Western nations that were his key backers after the US-led military operation in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime.European Union observers said a quarter of all votes, or 1.5 million ballots, were suspect.Afghan election authorities are reviewing disputed ballots. A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expected a final announcement on Sunday or Monday.Karzai's chief rival, urbane former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, said in Kabul that he was hopeful investigations into ballot-stuffing allegations would result in a run-off.But Abdullah warned that if a run-off were not called, "those who are behind the fraud and tolerate fraud will be responsible for the consequences."Fellow candidate Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, said on a visit to Washington that Karzai and Abdullah so distrusted each other and election authorities that only a deal between the two could break the impasse.
The ambassador was unusually open about Karzai's disagreements with President Barack Obama, who has been cooler toward the Afghan leader than his predecessor, George W. Bush.Obama has made the fight against Islamic extremism a chief focus of his young presidency.He signed a five-year, 7.5-billion-dollar development package for violence-torn neighbor Pakistan on Thursday as he weighs a decision on whether to send tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for Thursday's suicide car bomb in the Afghan capital, saying their target was the Indian Embassy.Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement posted on the group's Web site that the attacker was an Afghan man who blew up his a sporty utility vehicle laden with explosives just outside the embassy.Afghan officials have said at least 12 people were killed and more than 80 wounded in the morning blast. The explosion occurred in an area that is also full of shops and near the Interior Ministry.

A lawyer for John Travolta testified Thursday that he warned a former Bahamas senator she would not get away with an alleged scheme to extort $25 million from the movie star, and even wore a wire to secretly record their conversations.Attorney Michael McDermott said the defendant, Pleasant Bridgewater, contacted him by telephone and demanded the money on behalf of a paramedic who had treated the actor's 16-year-old son, Jett, following a seizure that led to his death.The pair allegedly threatened to go to the media with a consent form that the actor signed to have his autistic son taken to an airport and flown to the U.S. for treatment. Travolta later changed his mind and Jett died at a local hospital Jan.The pair finally agreed to this figure, McDermott testified. He said Bridgewater e-mailed him instructions on where to electronically transfer the money. The e-mail and the videotapes were entered into evidence.

The United States and other nations should take a diplomatic approach toward Iran in negotiations over that nation's nuclear program, President Carter said Thursday.Iran's nuclear chief and representatives from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, as well as Germany, started talks Thursday in Switzerland over a recently revealed nuclear facility in Iran. The existence of the second uranium enrichment facility prompted President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France to publicly chide the Islamic republic and threaten further sanctions last week at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.