A senior Taliban minister Saturday promised security for the foreign workers in Afghanistan, a day before UN sanctions will be imposed on the war-torn nation.
"All the staff of the UN and other organisations are safe and protected," the Taliban's powerful Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel told AFP.
He said the Islamic militia appreciated aid workers were helping the country's impoverished people and said anyone legally entering the country would be safe.
The UN Security Council was due to bring in sanctions on Afghanistan from Sunday for failing to hand over indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden is wanted in the United States for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August last year in which 224 people died.
Protests have erupted against the sanctions in Afghan cities this week and six bomb blasts shook the nearby Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday, targetted at US and UN buildings.
The UN head in Kabul, Jolyon Leslie, said they had not yet faced any security problems and were trying to keep up operations as normal.
In August last year an Italian UN military officer was shot dead in Kabul hours after Washington launched a Cruise missile attack against suspect terrorist installations run by bin Laden in southern Afghanistan.
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