KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Two more election workers have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the total in advance of this weekend's parliamentary election to 21, officials said.
The latest deaths occurred in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, CNN reported. A spokesman for the provincial governor said the Taliban carried out the killings in a remote district.
Tabish Forugh of the Independent Election Commission said the security situation has become so bad that 1,030 of the 6,835 polling stations have been shuttered. He said 26 election workers have been wounded in addition to the 21 killed.
During Friday's regular daily briefing with reporters, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama and his advisers discussed several issues related to the Afghan election at the White House this week.
"They discussed specifically ensuring that there was security -- a significant security apparatus in place and there are … very serious security concerns in many areas in the country," Gibbs said. " We know that there are those that will seek to draw attention by disrupting these important elections."
Gibbs said the administration is concerned about possible election fraud as well as safety and security.
The U.S. Embassy warned U.S. nationals to exercise caution in the run-up to the election and the days afterward.
NATO troops will join 52,000 members of the Afghan military and security forces in protecting polling stations and voters against threatened Taliban attacks.
"Every vote cast by an Afghan in these elections ... is a perfect statement against the Taliban," Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, a NATO spokesman, told reporters Thursday. "Every time someone votes in a polling station, the Taliban loses."
