UN orders Afghan retreat to protect aid staff

The United Nations refugee agency began pulling foreign staff out of southern and eastern Afghanistan yesterday - a decision that could hit tens of thousands of Afghans - after a French aid worker was killed.

Thirty foreign workers were being withdrawn, and refugee centres in the provinces of Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar were being closed, said Filippo Grandi, the chief of mission in Afghanistan at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He said: "We will review the situation after two weeks."

The withdrawal follows a series of attacks on the UN including the drive-by killing on Sunday of Bettina Goislard, 20, who worked for the UNHCR. She was travelling through a bazaar in a clearly marked UN vehicle in Ghazni, 60 miles south-west of the capital, Kabul. On the same day, a UN vehicle was attacked in Paktia, while a car bomb exploded outside UN offices in Kandahar on 11 November, injuring two people.

Haji Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Ghazni, said two men alleged to have killed Ms Goislard had been taken into custody. He said they admitted the crime and being members of the Taliban. Ms Goislard had worked in Afghanistan for more than a year.

Mullah Akim Latifi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said its fighters were not responsible for the murder of Ms Goislard.