UN to pull out 600 staff from Afghanistan
The United Nations announced yesterday it was evacuating more than half its international staff from Afghanistan after a deadly Taliban attack on a guesthouse for UN workers.
But the UN said it had no intention of abandoning Afghanistan, where 100,000 US-led foreign troops are battling a bloody insurgency eight years after the extremist Taliban regime was driven from power.
Around 600 expatriate staff, from a total of 1,100 foreigners, will be temporarily relocated, UN spokesman Dan McNorton told AFP in Kabul.
"The only people who will remain are regarded as essential staff. This is to ensure the safety of all our staff in Afghanistan," the spokesman said.
The evacuations will begin immediately, he said.
Meanwhile, Australia has ruled out sending extra troops to Afghanistan, despite US and Nato calls for reinforcements to shore up the campaign against a resurgent Taliban, a report said yesterday.
Defence Minister John Faulkner told US officials Australia had decided against boosting its 1,550-strong troop commitment to the strife-torn nation beyond the 450 extra soldiers it sent earlier this year.
"There is a very clear understanding and appreciation of the fact that Australia increased the number of troops to Afghanistan very significantly on April 29 this year," Faulkner said, according to public broadcaster ABC.
Faulkner, on an official visit to Washington, met with congressional members, military commanders and his American counterpart, Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
General Stanley McChrystal, Afghanistan's top US and Nato commander, has warned that the war could be lost within a year without extra resources to fight the Islamists, who were driven from power by the 2001 US-led invasion.
President Barack Obama is currently considering a large boost in US troop numbers in the face of growing public opposition in the United States.
In an insurgent attack, a US soldier serving under Nato was killed in eastern Afghanistan while on patrol, an ISAF statement said Thursday.
His death took to 460 the number of international soldiers killed in Afghanistan so far this year, the deadliest of an eight-year anti-insurgency campaign being fought by about 100,000 Nato and US-led troops.
Apart from troop, UN has around 5,600 staff in Afghanistan, about 80 percent of whom are Afghans, and the relocations will affect around 12 percent of its total deployment.
The decision would be reviewed regularly and was expected to be effective for "a number of weeks while additional security is being put in place", McNorton said.
In a statement, the United Nations said it was "fully committed to helping all of Afghanistan's people, as it has been for more than half a century".
"Every effort will be made to minimise disruption to our activities while these additional security steps are being taken," it said.
The move comes eight days after Taliban suicide gunmen stormed a Kabul hostel in a dawn attack that killed five UN workers.
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