By Jonathon Burch and Yara Bayoumy
KABUL (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Thursday it would evacuate hundreds of its international staff from Afghanistan for several weeks due to deteriorating security, a sharp blow for Western efforts to stabilise the country.
Spokesman Aleem Siddique said the United Nations would relocate about 600 of its roughly 1,100 international staff, with some being moved to safer sites within Afghanistan and the rest withdrawn from the country temporarily.
The move, a week after five U.N. foreign staff were killed by militants in Kabul, complicates for U.S. president Barack Obama's counter-insurgency war strategy, which foresees an influx of civilian assistance alongside extra troops.
Obama is due to decide within weeks whether to approve a request from his commander in Afghanistan for tens of thousands of additional troops. The U.S. force in Afghanistan has already doubled in the nine months since Obama took office.
The United Nations said the evacuations would not disrupt its operations in the country.
"We're doing everything we can to minimise disruption of our work during this period," the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide told reporters at a news conference in Kabul.
"We are simply doing what we have to do following the tragic events of last week to look after our workers in a difficult moment while ensuring that our operations in Afghanistan can continue."
Eide said some staff would relocate to Dubai where the U.N. has a facility and where it is "inside the mission area."
Siddique said staff would return in three to four weeks after the U.N.'s security measures are changed.
"It will be a consolidation of staff. At the moment we have 93 guest houses across Kabul and there will be a consolidation of those guest houses so that we can provide better security in fewer places," he said.
"ELIMINATE CORRUPTION"
The United Nations mission played a critical role in organising elections in the country this year, and its agencies such as UNICEF run health, education and other programmes.
In last week's attack, Taliban suicide bombers hiding explosive vests under police uniforms entered a guest-house used by U.N. staff, killing five foreigners and prompting a security review by many of the international agencies in the country.
A second round of the presidential election, which was to be held on November 7, was cancelled after President Hamid Karzai's opponent withdrew, citing insufficient safeguards against fraud.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah's decision not to stand meant Karzai was declared the winner, even though more than a quarter of his votes from the August 20 first round were thrown out after a fraud investigation.
The tainted election has hurt Karzai's standing among Western nations with troops fighting in the country, making Obama's decision about whether to send more troops even more difficult.
The chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said on Wednesday Karzai's legitimacy among Afghans was "at best in question right now and, at worst, doesn't exist.
Karzai needed to take "concrete steps to eliminate corruption" such as arresting and prosecuting corrupt officials, he said.
There are now nearly 110,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them American.
(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Jerry Norton)
