A Taliban resurgence has forced U.N. aid workers to suspend their work in most of southern Afghanistan during a crucial period, a top U.N. official told the Security Council on Friday.

The suspension has undermined humanitarian work intended to shore up the shaky central government as Afghanistan elects delegates to a December national assembly meeting that will vote on a new draft constitution, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.

The international community will have to sharply step up its aid to Afghanistan to make it safe and rebuild the country after years of war and social unrest, Guehenno added.

While world governments pledged US$4.5 billion nearly two years ago for Afghan reconstruction over five years, the Finance Ministry now projects rebuilding needs at US$6 billion a year, he said.

Due to soaring Taliban attacks on Afghan civilians as well as aid workers in the south, all U.N. aid missions have been temporarily halted in Nimruz, Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces while armed escorts are required for all aid work in four districts of adjacent Kandahar province, Guehenno said.

Following a series of killings by Taliban guerrillas in late September in volatile Helmand province, most humanitarian relief groups working in the region have banned all travel outside the nearby key southern city of Kandahar, he said.

The U.N. Security Council this month authorized the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to send troops anywhere in the country rather than keep them confined to the capital, Kabul, and its environs, as required under the force's initial mandate.

However, governments have been slow to volunteer troops for Afghanistan, Guehenno said.

While Germany has begun deploying up to 450 soldiers to the northern district of Kunduz to form a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- a group of aid workers under military protection -- more robust deployments in other regions will be required to "make major inroads in the security situation," he said.

Nearly two years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to topple its Taliban rulers after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijack attacks, U.S. and fledgling Afghan forces remain primarily responsible for battling the Taliban. Washington blamed Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the attacks and accused the Taliban of providing them with a safe haven.

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