President Hamid Karzai chose a powerful warlord accused of rights abuses as one of his vice presidential running mates on Monday, hours before leaving for meetings in Washington with President Barack Obama and Pakistan’s president.

President Hamid Karzai registered as a candidate for Afghanistan’s August presidential election on Monday and selected a powerful warlord and former top political leader as his new vice presidential running mate.

Ballots of Afghan women in conservative districts are vulnerable to fraud in August’s presidential election, the country’s top human rights official said Sunday.

A top human rights official voiced fears Sunday of vote fraud in August’s presidential election as violence also threatening Afghanistan’s fragile democracy rumbled on, with a market bombing that killed four.

A bomb placed on a bicycle in a busy market killed four people Sunday, including two children, while American fighter aircraft and ground forces killed 19 militants near the Pakistan border, officials said.

Three Americans and two other international troops were killed Friday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.

Officials say five international troops, including three Americans, have been killed in an attack in eastern Afghanistan.

International and Afghan forces killed 15 militants in southern Afghanistan on Friday, the U.S. military said.

A German soldier was killed during an attack on a patrol in Afghanistan on Wednesday as Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier held talks with the nation’s leader in Kabul.

The Taliban vowed Wednesday to launch a wave of attacks in a spring offensive as a surge of American troops arrives in Afghanistan, a threat delivered on the same day that 42 militants were reported killed in clashes.