NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - The United Nations on Monday raised the security threat level for its workers in northwestern Pakistan, evacuating all foreign staff involved in non-emergency projects due to increased militant attacks.

Pakistan's Taliban militants have carried out a series of bomb attacks and commando-style raids in urban areas in recent weeks in retaliation for an army assault on their remote strongholds along the Afghan border.

The increased threat level to "Phase IV" means only limited international staff vital for emergency, humanitarian relief, and security operations in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) will remain.

"For a long time now the security situation is worsening in the country, particularly in NWFP and FATA," Ishrat Rizvi, U.N. information officer, told Reuters AlertNet by phone from Islamabad.

"The U.N. has been involved in both development and humanitarian assistance in these areas, but we cannot continue in the prevailing security situation, which is why we are limiting the numbers of international staff members."

The U.N. added in a statement that raising the threat level was a step towards enhancing security measures for its staff, eleven of whom were lost to terrorist incidents this year.

On Monday, a suspected Taliban suicide bomb killed at least 35 people in the city of Rawalpindi. This comes after one of the bloodiest attacks in recent years in Peshawar in NWFP, where over a hundred were killed when a bomb exploded in a busy market place.

EMERGENCY WORK CONTINUES

The U.N. has around 3,000 national and international staff working in Pakistan, mainly on projects related to promoting access to education, improving healthcare services, poverty reduction and gender empowerment.

U.N. officials would not comment on how many foreign staff would be relocated from NWFP and FATA but they said it was a "small number" which was unlikely to affect long-term projects.

There will also be additional security measures put in place for staff who remain in these areas, said another U.N. official involved in security arrangements, adding that this would include more police escorts for staff and security being beefed up at U.N. field offices.

The army offensive aimed at driving out militants from the ethnic Pashtun tribal areas of country has created a humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands fleeing their homes to escape the violence.

The humanitarian community has been overwhelmed by the scale of displacement, which at the peak of the emergency in July, saw more than two million people leaving their homes in search of food, shelter and safety.

However, Manuel Bessler, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stressed that staff responding to the humanitarian impact of the emergency would not be affected by the raised threat level.

"I want to make it clear the increased threat level does not change anything for those working on emergency and humanitarian relief operations," he said. "We will continue to keep a presence here in order to help those in need."

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