It took an hour for Afghan and NATO forces to respond to a Taliban attack on a guest house occupied by the UN staff in Kabul, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has complained and sought additional funds to beef up security for the world body employees in conflict zones.

"The UN security team (in the guest house) repeatedly called for help from both Afghanistan government forces and other international partners," Ban told the General Assembly yesterday, two days after the Taliban militants wearing suicide vests stormed the building in the heart of the Afghan capital killing 12 people, including five UN staff.

"We are still sorting out the facts, but initial reports suggest that it was approximately an hour, if not longer, before Afghan police or others arrived on the scene," he said.

The Kabul guest house attack follow the terror strike on World Food Programme office in the Pakistani capital Islamabad in which the UN had lost another five of its members.

This year, not counting peacekeepers, 27 civilian staffers have been killed, more than half in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Calling for more security units to guard UN facilities and guest houses, Ban has appealed to both the Security Council and General Assembly to allocate more resources to better protect UN workers in conflict zones.

Staff who survived the Kabul attack, which came ahead of the November 7 presidential run-off election, have now been flown out of the country and movement of all other UN employees in Afghanistan remains restricted, according to the UN.

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