The United Nations said Thursday that it is temporarily relocating more than half its staff in Afghanistan following last week's deadly Taliban attack against U.N. workers - the most direct targeting of its employees during decades of work in the country.

The UN mission is still reeling from the pre-dawn assault on a guesthouse in the capital that left five UN staffers dead.

Though the UN insists it remains committed to Afghanistan, its actions show how much security has degraded in the country and raise questions about the future of its work if attacks continue.

The relocations follow a UN decision on Monday to suspend much of its work in the volatile northwest of neighboring Pakistan because of increasingly targeted attacks.

In Afghanistan, some 600 nonessential staffers will be moved for three to four weeks to more secure locations in and outside of Afghanistan while the body works to find safer permanent housing, spokesman Aleem Siddique said.