UN staff lie low after Kabul terror attack

UN staff in Afghanistan were ordered to stay at home today, 24 hours after the Taliban killed five of their colleagues in an attack on a Kabul hotel.

The attack underscored the risks facing UN and Afghan officials in organising a run-off election following the fraud-marred first-round vote in August, and the massive challenge for the Nato military force in curbing the Taliban insurgency.

The assault, which left five foreign UN staff and three Afghans dead, demonstrated the ease with which Taliban militants can penetrate the relative safety of Kabul.

A Taliban spokesman said the attack was aimed at undermining the November 7 presidential election run-off; the target was a small hotel home to the largest concentration of UN staff working on the election.

A UN spokesman said at least nine UN staff who survived the two-hour assault on the Bakhtar guest house will be evacuated to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates today.

The UN has ordered its employees to remain "on lockdown", with their movements restricted.

An internal UN memo ordered restrictions on movement for the rest of the week and said UN departments will be reviewing lists of critical and nonessential personnel, suggesting some people may be moved out of the country for their own safety.

But the spokesman said: "Our work continues, and in terms of the elections, preparations are already well advanced. But the impact this will have needs to be evaluated over the coming days, and it's too early to make any judgments."

The August 19, 2003, truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people, prompted the UN to pull out of Iraq for several years.

An umbrella group of more than 100 local and international aid agencies said aid organisations in Afghanistan "have been subject to increasing numbers of attacks, threats and intimidation by both insurgent and criminal groups".

The Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief said attacks on aid groups are "higher now than in the last six years".

Yesterday's violence brought to the number of aid workers killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 23, the group said. Fifteen more have been injured since the start of the year.

"This situation has forced many aid agencies to restrict the scale and scope of their development and humanitarian operations," the group said. "Deteriorating security conditions continue to jeopardise the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance and threaten the livelihoods of the most vulnerable."

The five UN staff killed were from Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, the Philippines and the United States. The nine wounded suffered mostly cuts and bruises as they tried to escape.

The election pits President Hamid Karzai against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and the West sees it as crucial to restoring legitimacy to the corruption-riddled government.

UN-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Mr Karzai's votes from the August 20 ballot because of fraud, pushing his totals below the 50% threshold needed for a first-round victory.