Abdullah Abdullah, a presidential candidate, top rival of President Hamid Karzai and former Afghan foreign minister, Kabul, 15 Oct. 2009Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah says he is hopeful that a United Nations-backed investigation into ballot-stuffing will lead to a run-off election.

The Electoral Complaints Commission is expected to make an announcement within days on allegations of fraud levied against incumbent President Hamid Karzai.  

Preliminary results show Mr. Karzai won with 54 percent of the vote, but the commission could discard enough ballots to force a second vote.

Separately, Italy has denied accusations that it paid off Taliban commanders and Afghan warlords to maintain peace in the region where their troops operated.

The accusations, published in Britain's Times newspaper, say Italian secret service agents paid tens of thousands of dollars to insurgents while Italian forces were assigned to the area. According to the times, French troops later took over the assignment but were not notified of the alleged payments, potentially costing the lives of several French troops who were killed in an ambush.  

In other news, NATO says Afghan and international forces have killed several militants during operations in eastern Afghanistan Thursday.

NATO said joint forces carried out search operations in Zabul and Wardak provinces. A statement said they killed militants and destroyed militant fire arms, communication gear and a suicide vest in Zabul's Bahar district.  

NATO said troops in Wardak's Chak district also killed several militants who had fired on the soldiers.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.