At around 7:00 am, several hours after dawn, 30 armoured vehicles deposited NATO troops, joined quickly by Afghan counterparts and their US "advisors" at the entrance to Gadakhel village, 70 kilometres (44 miles) east of Kabul.

It is the first NATO patrol in months in a part of Kapisa province where the alliance has security responsibility. The object? To visit a would-be polling station about two kilometres into the green-carpeted valley of Bedrau.

There are no police, no military bases, no electricity. Only Hezb-e-Islami rebels led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Taliban fighters and tribesmen living for centuries by their own code of conduct in mud-brick hamlets.

In rural Afghanistan, this is a battlefield like countless others dotted across the vast country where Islamist insurgents fight a guerrilla war against the Western-backed government and allied Western troops.

Suddenly the radio crackles into action. "Contact!" A few hundred metres ahead, machine gun fire rips through the morning quiet. Rockets explode. The advance reconnaissance party was ambushed. No losses.

Calm returns. The terrain is perfect ambush territory. Walls of up to three metres (yards) separate fields. Narrow footpaths snake out of sight. Houses are scattered across lush vegetation that offers plenty of places to hide.

At 8:15 am, a much louder explosion reverberates through the valley. French troops under NATO command fired a Milan anti-tank guided missile towards about 15 rebels holed up nearby. They fire back with Kalashnikovs.

The radio crackles back into action. "We think some Taliban are wounded and that people will come and find them. Permission to fire a second Milan?"

"Negative" replies Colonel Francis Chanson, French commander in Kapisa.

"We're not here to kill. Otherwise we'll just increase local animosity," says the commander, parroting classic counter-insurgency doctrine.

The soldiers walk on in the heat, the smell of sewage wafting under the open skies. At 9:20 am, more explosions and machine-gun fire to the west.

Radio traffic quickens. Their Afghan colleagues have encountered resistance.

"We got intelligence from the local population and shopkeepers saying that all's well. But the interpreter said they're lying, which is obviously true."

At 10:00 am, the French arrive at a mosque, chosen as a polling station for the presidential and provincial council elections on August 20.

The soldiers pause to meet tribal elders in the shade of the square outside the mosque, accompanied by the sound of bullets popping overhead and several rockets exploding nearby -- one seriously wounding an Afghan soldier.

"Killing one, two, 10 people is not the answer. We've got other problems.... We need development projects and jobs," local mayor Abdul Fatah tells the NATO soldiers, speaking through a translator.

Chanson is not satisfied. "Insurgents live in the valley and we know it." He rebuffs the tribesmen's denials.

The colonel lays his cards on the table. If security improves, they have a deal. Development projects can begin.

As talk turns to the elections, the tribesmen seem distinctly unenthusiastic. Some said they had no idea where ballot boxes would be set up -- roughly 20 metres away in the mosque.

"The elections are supposed to take place in the mosque. Have people here been threatened by insurgents not to vote?"

One tribal elder pipes up. "There was a letter from the insurgents posted on the wall of the mosque, threatening all those who want to vote."

Three hours earlier, a member of the local shura, or council, was wounded fighting with insurgents. Another was shot dead at dawn by rebels, Afghan and French soldiers tell AFP.

At the meeting, it becomes clear that authorities have registered no one on the electoral roll and no one has a voting card -- three weeks before polls whose credibility has been thrown into doubt by spiralling unrest.

"There are two problems. We are civilians. We have no weapons. It's dangerous for us and concerning the elections, we have no voting cards, because the government doesn't come here," said one of the elders.

"At the previous elections five years ago, 10 percent had a voting card, but today, nobody," said Abdul Fatah.

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