Kabul, Nov. 5: The UN mission in Afghanistan announced plans today to relocate hundreds of foreign staff members, sending some out of the country, in the wake of a stunning, lethal attack on its workers at a guest house last week.

In the attack, three insurgents dressed in police uniforms scaled the guesthouse’s front gate to mount a terrifying two-hour siege. Five UN international staff members were killed, along with two Afghan security officials and the brother-in-law of a prominent Afghan politician, before the attackers were shot and killed. The strike was the biggest on the UN in Afghanistan in its half-century of work here and sent the organisation into lockdown across the country.

A UN spokesman, Adrian Edwards, said about 600 international staff members would be temporarily relocated either to other locations in Afghanistan or to other places, primarily Dubai and Central Asian countries.

The hope is that they will be able to return within three weeks to a month, but it could take longer to set up secure housing, Edwards said. He added that the mission was reviewing all its locations.

But he stressed that UN was not reducing its presence in Afghanistan.

The UN has at least 1,000 international staff members assigned to Afghanistan, and at any one time 600 to 700 of them are in the country. The number of Afghan staff members is much bigger, around 4,500, Edwards said.

The mission’s head in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, issued an unusual, public appeal to President Hamid Karzai to implement sweeping political reforms.

The UN had been helping with the fraud-marred presidential election and the runoff, but its role grew less crucial this week after the runoff was cancelled this week after Karzai’s rival withdrew.

Speaking at a news conference, Eide said it was important to change practices, including the illegal involvement of government officials in running the ballot, and to review the make-up of election oversight procedures.