The United Nations will relocate about 600 of its roughly 1,100 international staff working in Afghanistan. The move comes after an attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul last week left five foreign workers dead.

“The UN has already asked its employees to be more careful, to avoid travelling without a convoy in Kabul and in other parts of the country,” said FRANCE 24's special correspondent in Kabul, Lucas Menget. “This is the logical next step.”

The UN said in a statement on Thursday that the evacuations would begin immediately and would involve short-term relocations. “These employees will return when the security situation returns to normal, when there is less violence,” said Menget.

On October 28, suicide bombers hiding explosive vests under police uniforms entered a private guesthouse used by UN employees in Kabul, killing five foreigners and prompting a security review by many of the international agencies in the country.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Kabul this week and urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to beef up security for UN staff in his country.

The request was made shortly before Afghanistan's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) declared Karzai the winner of a disputed presidential election.

A run-off vote initially set for November 7 was cancelled after Karzai’s opponent Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the contest, citing insufficient safeguards against fraud.

During his visit, Ban dispelled speculation that the UN would leave the war-torn country. Echoing his views, Thursday's statement said: “The United Nations is 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”.

The UN’s decision to relocate more than half its foreign staff is a blow for US president Barack Obama’s counter-insurgency strategy, which advocates an influx of civilian assistance alongside a build-up in troops.

Obama is due to decide within weeks whether to approve a request from his top commander in Afghanistan for tens of thousands of additional troops. There are now nearly 110,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them American.