According to Afghan police, Taliban insurgents cut the index fingers off 11 voters who participated in Saturday's presidential run-off between foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. The incident occurred in Herat, in western Afghanistan. All 11 fingers were from men.

"Like millions of their countrymen and women, these ordinary Afghans were exercising their fundamental right to determine the future path of their country through voting and not through violence and intimidation," Jan Kubis, a special representative to the United Nations, told the BBC. "By their vote, they already defeated those who promote terror and violence."

The Afghan presidential election has been fraught with attacks by the Taliban—the Wall Street Journal reports that at least 68 people have been killed and that attacks were especially aggressive Saturday:

The deadliest of the Taliban attacks on Saturday appeared to be a roadside bomb that struck a minibus carrying electoral workers and observers on their way home from a polling center in the northern province of Samangan. At least 11 people were killed, several of them election workers. Earlier in the day, a rocket that hit a home in the eastern province of Khost killed seven children.

Allegations of voter fraud abound as well. Preliminary results of the election will be announced July 2.

[Image via AP]