GHAZNI, AFGHANISTAN – President Karzai made only his second successful campaign stop outside the safety of the capital yesterday, telling a crowd of 10,000 people that historic elections this weekend will deliver them from a quarter-century of war.

Security was extremely tight, with American bodyguards – machine guns strapped around their shoulders and wraparound sunglasses covering their eyes – and hundreds of Afghan security forces on hand. American helicopters flew overhead and every participant in the rally had to pass through security checkpoints.

During a visit to Ghazni, 75 miles south of Kabul, Mr. Karzai said the election was a golden opportunity to build a new future for a country that has known nothing but war, drought, and poverty for more than two decades.

“Brothers and sisters of Afghanistan, I ask you to vote for me freely, with no pressure,” Mr. Karzai said. “We want a proud Afghanistan, a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan.”

A day before Mr. Karzai’s speech, Afghan soldiers and police raided a hideout in southern Uruzgan province, neighboring Ghazni, where Taliban terrorists were suspected of preparing attacks to disrupt the elections, prompting a three-hour firefight that left seven insurgents dead, officials said yesterday.

Elsewhere, seven police officers were killed when their patrol car struck a mine in southern Kandahar province close to the Pakistani border yesterday. Police said gunmen shot at a U.N. vehicle, injuring three Afghan election workers in an eastern province.

The Taliban has kept up a steady drumbeat of violence ahead of the vote, with attacks on election workers, frequent rocket assaults on American bases, and occasional ambushes.

Mr. Karzai, the overwhelming favorite to beat 17 rivals and win Saturday’s vote, has largely remained ensconced in his heavily guarded palace since he survived a rocket attack on his helicopter at a campaign stop in eastern Afghanistan in September. His vice presidential running mate was targeted later, surviving a bomb attack on his convoy in northeastern Afghanistan.

But after the rally yesterday, the president mingled with the enormous crowd, shaking hands with an old man who pressed closer to meet him.

“Don’t push him! Don’t push him!” Mr. Karzai told his security detail as they tried to keep the man away. “This is democracy. This is emotion!”

Yesterday was by far the most active day in a presidential campaign that had previously been conducted largely behind closed doors, with candidates quietly courting the support of tribal elders who can influence whole villages to vote along with them.