Afghans streamed into polling stations for the country's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years being held under tight security after Taliban militants vowed to disrupt the vote. Despite security concerns officials expected a high turnout among the nearly 12.5 million Afghans eligible to vote in the next phase of a difficult path to democracy launched after the hardline Islamic regime fell in late 2001. On the ballot papers voters will find a cross section of Afghanistan's strife-torn society, including warlords, drug kingpins, mullahs and -- marking a step forward for the conservative country -- women.President Hamid Karzai, who won Afghanistan's first presidential election in October 2004, said the vote showed the country was leaving behind decades of ruinous conflict. "After 30 years of war, intervention and misery, today Afghanistan is moving forward," Karzai said as he cast his ballot at a special polling centre for senior officials in Kabul. "It is making an economy, making political institutions and today we are completing the whole process, completing the laying down of the foundation of the Afghan state ... That is why we are making history." The 26,000 polling stations, scattered from the parched southern deserts to the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountains, opened at 6:00 am (0130 GMT) and were due to close at 4:00 pm.