Head of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani (C) gestures during the start of the sorting of presidential ballot papers for the audit and recounting at the counting center at a warehouse in Kabul on July 17, 2014. Afghanistan began a massive audit of 8.1 million ballots cast in the run-off round of its controversial presidential vote, hours after a brazen Taliban raid on Kabul’s airport.The audit is aimed at reversing a destabilising political crisis that has threatened to widen the country’s ethnic fissures as NATO winds down its deployment after more than a decade of war. AFP PHOTO/Wakil KOHSAR