Moving out

The UN said that roughly 600 of its over 1,100 international staff in Afghanistan would either be shifted to safer locations in the country or pulled out altogether.

Dan McNorton, a UN spokesman, said the relocations would involve mostly workers without "essential" responsibilities.

"The only people who will remain are regarded as essential staff," he said, adding that this would be to ensure the safety of all other UN staff in Afghanistan.

Direct link to Taliban attack

The move comes eight days after an attack on a guesthouse in Kabul used by the UN, in which five of its workers were killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, which saw Taliban members storm into the Bekhtar house with machine guns after a bomb went off outside. Two Afghan security officers were also killed in the gunfire, along with three of the attackers.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held talks with security advisors in Kabul earlier this week to asses the situation after the attack, which was the most severe in the organization's fifty year history in Afghanistan. At present, the UN has 5,600 staff in Afghanistan, including 1,100 international workers.

Speaking in the Afghan capital on Monday, Ban said the UN was not daunted by acts of violence and that it would remain in the war-torn country.

"There has been speculation that the United Nations will evacuate Afghanistan. We will not be deterred, cannot be deterred and must not be deterred and the work of the United Nations will continue," said Ban.

In a statement, the UN said the relocations were a temporary measure "while additional security was being put in place." Details of the relocations, including which workers would be affected and how many, have yet to be released.

Military disappointed

A top NATO general reacted with dismay, saying the alliance's efforts had to go hand-in-hand with civilian work. "I am not very satisfied," German General Egon Ramms told journalists at the Innich command bunker on the Dutch-German border.

"By withdrawing personnel from Afghanistan the UN will not be able to reach the progress and success we need. Reconstruction and security rely on each other," he said.

The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, denied it amounted to a withdrawal from Afghanistan. "We are not pulling out and will not pull out," he told reporters.

A coalition representing 100 non-governmental organisations based in Afghanistan commented that NGOs employ few foreigners and are not planning to follow the UN's lead in removing them. "They will not decrease their activities at all," promised Hashin Myar, deputy director of ACBAR, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief.

Discontent in NATO

There was further sign of strain among Western allies as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner reportedly hit out at the United States and Germany for failing to coordinate on NATO policy.

Kouchner complained that President Barack Obama's US administration was trying to draw up a new strategy for Afghanistan without consulting European allies in NATO.

"What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?" Kouchner asked, according to the New York Times. "Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem. We need to talk to each other as allies."

glb/AFP/AP/Reuters
Editor: Trinity Hartman