KABUL, Aug 10: The United Nations has suspended road missions across much of southern Afghanistan following a series of attacks which left seven dead and 15 injured, a UN spokesman said Sunday.

“All UN missions to the border districts of Helmand and Kandahar (provinces) have been suspended,” David Singh told reporters at a press conference.

“There are also currently no missions to Uruzgan and Zabul (provinces) or to northern Helmand except to (the capital) Lashkar Gah or northern Kandahar,” he said.

Six Afghan soldiers and an Afghan working for the US aid agency Mercy Corps were killed in an attack Thursday on the district commissioner’s office in Dishu, southern Helmand province, “by about 40 suspected terrorist elements,” Singh said.

“The provincial authorities have sent forces to the area to investigate and track down the offenders,” he said.

In neighbouring Kandahar province, 10 Afghan staff of the non-government organisation Coordination Humanitarian Assistance were attacked and beaten in their offices in Maiwand district on Tuesday evening.

“They were severely beaten and tied up when they refused to release the keys to their newly-purchased vehicles. The armed men who attacked them set fire to three vehicles,” Singh said.

That same evening five policemen were injured when a police road checkpoint in Maiwand district was “attacked by suspected members of terrorist organisations equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine-guns and grenades.”

Local authorities have blamed the attacks on Taliban remnants and their Al Qaeda allies.

Meanwhile, Kabul welcomed NATO’s imminent takeover of the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force which is helping to ensure security in the Afghan capital.

“The Afghan government is confident that ISAF’s mission effectiveness will be enhanced by NATO’s new role at the helm of the peacekeeping force in Kabul,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

In its first mission outside its traditional European theatre, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will on Monday take over command of ISAF at the end of the current six-month joint German-Dutch command, ending the need to find new lead nations every six months.

President Hamid Karzai, German Defence Minister Peter Struck and senior NATO officials will attend the ceremony.

While the ISAF is currently restricted to the Kabul area under its United Nations mandate, the Afghan government said it hoped discussions to expand its area of responsibility could start as soon as possible.

NATO will be forced to discuss expanding Afghanistan’s International Security Assistance Force to the provinces, a spokesman said on Sunday ahead of the handover of command to the Nato.

“Inevitably it will have to be discussed because people will force us to discuss it,” NATO spokesman Mark Laity told reporters at a press conference.

Laity however stressed that for the time being NATO would stick to ISAF’s fixed mandate to assist with security in the Kabul area.—AFP