UN relocating staff after attack

Kabul: The United Nations said yesterday that it will send more than half its international staff either out of Afghanistan or into more secure compounds following last week's deadly Taliban attack against UN workers — the most direct targeting of its employees during decades of work in the country.

The head of the UN mission also issued a stern warning to newly re-elected President Hamid Karzai that Afghanistan can no longer count on international support unless he cracks down on corruption and initiates reforms.

The UN is still reeling from the pre-dawn assault on a guesthouse in the capital that left five UN employees dead.

The UN insists it remains committed to Afghanistan, but its actions show how much security has degraded in the country and raise questions about the future of its work if attacks continue.

The relocations follow a UN decision on Monday to suspend much of its work in the volatile northwest of neighbouring Pakistan because of increasingly targeted attacks.

In Afghanistan, some 600 non-essential employees will be moved for three to four weeks to more secure locations both within and outside of Afghanistan while the world body works to find safer permanent housing, spokesman Aleem Seddiqi said. He said they did not know how many would actually be leaving the country.

Not pulling out

"We are not talking about pulling out," the head of the mission, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, told reporters. "We are not talking about evacuation."

He said a number of options were being considered for those who have to leave the country, including Dubai — a typical destination for international workers in Afghanistan on rest breaks.

Still, Eide made clear that the UN is concerned about the deteriorating situation in the country and the government's failure to stamp out corruption which helps fuel the insurgency.

"There is a belief among some that the international commitment to Afghanistan will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan," Eide said during a news conference in Kabul. "I would like to emphasise that that is not correct. It is the public opinion in donor countries and in troop-contributing countries that decides on the strength of that commitment."

The majority of the UN's 1,100 international staff in Afghanistan live in the capital, spread out in more than 90 guesthouses.

The plan is to consolidate those living arrangements to better protect staff, Seddiqi said. He stressed this was not a pullout or a scale-down in operations. About 80 per cent of the UN's staff in Afghanistan are Afghan citizens, and they will not be moved or halt their work, he said.