KABUL — Afghanistan on Thursday began a massive audit of 8.1 million ballots cast in the run-off round of its controversial presidential vote, hours after a brazen Taliban raid on Kabul’s airport. The audit is aimed at reversing a destabilizing political crisis that has threatened to widen the country’s ethnic fissures as foreign troops prepare to withdraw after more than a decade of war. Some 23,000 ballot boxes are being transported by the Afghan army and NATO forces to the capital, where they will be examined at 100 verification stations. “The audit will take two to three weeks, we are planning to form hundreds of teams for this audit,” Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani, chief of the Independent Election Commission told a press conference. “I hope both candidates accept the results this time after the overall audit,” he added.

 
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