Ban urges more security for UN in Afghanistan

The UN Chief, Ban Ki Moon, is due to hold a meeting of the organization's top officials to discuss more protection for UN facilities and staff in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I will ask for expedited action for our security measures, so that we can meet the dramatically escalated threat to UN staff, now widely considered to be a 'soft target', as well as provide support for victims and their families," Ban told reporters in New York ahead of the Friday meeting.

The secretary general also appealed to the 15-member Security Council for their support during an emergency meeting on Thursday.

On Wednesday, three armed men raided a guesthouse in the Afghan capital and killed at least 12 people.

Six UN staffers, including an American, were among the dead. Seventeen others were also wounded in the incident.

The raid was the deadliest on a UN facility in Afghanistan since the US invasion of the country eight years ago.

The Taliban militants took credit for the attack in Kabul, claiming that the attack was the first step of a plan aimed at disrupting the run off presidential election slated for November 7.

In addition, a bomb blast inside the fortified offices of the United Nations World Food Program in Islamabad had killed five UN workers in early October.

Ban said that insurgency-hit Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan had become the most dangerous places on the planet for UN staff members.

The UN has said that the incidents will not deter the organization from its mission in the troubled region, where insurgency has skyrocketed over the past few months.

The militants have accused the organization of overseeing US interests in the volatile region.