The head of the United Nations in Afghanistan threatened a complete pullout yesterday after half of his staff were evacuated following last week’s terrorist attack, in which five UN personnel died.

In a blunt message to the newly re-elected President Karzai, Kai Eide, the UN Special Representative, said: “There is a belief that the international community [presence] will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan. I would like to emphasise that that’s not true.”

The Afghan Government must show a willingness to reform and address rampant corruption, he said. “We cannot afford any longer a situation where warlords and powerbrokers are playing their own game.”

The UN temporarily pulled out 600 of its 1,100 foreign staff yesterday. The move was prompted by the attack on the Bakhtar guesthouse on October 28, in which five UN personnel were killed by gunmen and suicide bombers in police uniforms. Security forces in Kabul remain on high alert as intelligence “chatter” has suggested that militants linked to the Taleban and al-Qaeda will try more attacks soon.

“Taleban and al-Qaeda militants are emboldened and they believe that one or two attacks more will cause the UN to leave,” a source said. Another diplomat said that militants captured in Kabul after the first attack had revealed that more attacks would follow.

A UN spokesman said that the organisation had accommodation in secured compounds for 450 staff in Kabul at present. Many UN workers considered non-essential would be relocated to Dubai or Islamabad — described as “inside the mission area” by Mr Eide. However, the UN still needed to double its secure accommodation capacity. At present, many of its staff live in 93 different guesthouses, often private homes that have passed basic security tests and have Afghan Interior Ministry police guards outside. It was one of these that was overrun last week.

Diplomatic sources suggested that the UN would either try to defend clusters of guesthouses or else concentrate staff in one compound, raising comparisons with the green zone in Baghdad. Security in future will be provided by the UN, probably using Gurkhas.

The mood in the Afghan capital has changed markedly since President Karzai’s first election victory in September 2004. Then he was a hero, and Western aid workers, diplomats and journalists danced till dawn in the city’s Western-run restaurants.

When their work allowed, UN workers relaxed by pools in secure compounds and took day trips to the Panjshir Valley north of the city. Some even went skiing in the Hindu Kush.

The first suicide bombers struck in 2005, just as reports began to multiply of Taleban attacks on US troops in the south. Initially, the bombers were so inept that they were no danger to anyone but themselves, but by the next year both they and the tactics of the insurgents were improving, confidence was dented and Westerners’ lives were becoming increasingly constrained.

In February last year the five-star Serena Hotel was attacked by suicide bombers, killing five people. The kind of events that gave foreigners a taste of home ended. The annual Kabul Desert Classic, a charity golf tournament at the city’s primitive nine-hole course, was called off in its fourth year because embassy workers and UN staff were no longer allowed in outlying areas of the city. Western restaurants were also placed out of bounds.

The attacks became less frequent but more spectacular and increasingly deadly. Many aid workers and diplomats now only saw the country through the bulletproof glass of their armoured land cruisers. Yesterday other aid agencies told The Times that tighter security imposed during the election would remain, but many said they preferred cameras and stronger defences to armed guards.

Some added that the UN move was not supported widely within the wider aid community. “We are really concerned about how the UN will provide services while their staff are outside the country and who will pick up the slack,” said one aid worker. “There is a perception that this seems like an overreaction, which sends a bad message.”

Agencies also said that they were monitoring the UN withdrawal but most appeared to be maintaining their staffing levels in the country for now. “It will not have major impact on the operations of international NGOs,” Lex Kassenberg, the head of Care International in Afghanistan, said. Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary-General, was critical of the response of both Afghan and Nato security forces after the Kabul attack last week.

Two UN guards held off the terrorists for an hour and a half before being killed. Another armed UN worker continued resistance from the guesthouse laundry room. More than 20 UN workers were able to escape as a result. However, security forces took more than an hour to arrive on the scene.

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