KANDAHAR: "We are not able to do our jobs. We are not even monitoring what is happening." The words of Riak Gok, a UN civil education officer in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar , are echoed around Afghanistan by aid workers grounded at headquarters in large cities as concerns grow about security for September elections.

Vast swathes of the country, mainly but not exclusively in the south and east, are off limits to aid agencies, leaving countless towns, villages and homes untouched by the international community that has vowed to help them.

A growing insurgency by Muslim militants, most from the ousted Taliban regime, has made driving along even well-travelled highways too dangerous, particularly because aid groups are a prime targets of attacks.

More worrying still are signs that the threat is spreading. Last week, five workers for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), including three Westerners, were killed in Badghis, a northwestern province hitherto considered a relatively safe.

MSF has suspended its Afghan operations and five more aid groups followed suit in Badghis on Monday after a grenade was thrown at the office of an Italian NGO at the weekend. Gok said the United Nations could operate in only five of 17 districts in Kandahar province, the Taliban's main stronghold before its overthrow by US-led forces in late 2001.

In Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul provinces, the only presence is in district capitals themselves, according to Frank Adarkwah-Yiadom, regional logistics coordinator for the UN electoral secretariat in Kandahar.

Travelling by road from Kandahar to the capitals of Uruzgan and Zabul requires an armed escort. "Everyone is willing and wanting to work, and we have everything to work with, but the problem is security. There is a lot of frustration," Adarkwah-Yiadom said.

Deteriorating security is directly linked to the approach of landmark elections the United States hopes will give legitimacy to President Hamid Karzai, but which the Taliban and its allies have vowed to disrupt.

"There is no doubt that the enemy's activities have increased," said southern security chief Dr Abdullah Laghmani. "Because the weather is warm, they can sleep in mountains and deserts at night. The reason for the increase in attacks is that elections are near."

The United Nations says it aims to have the large majority of the nine to 10 million eligible voters registered in time for the country's first ever direct vote. But officials in Kandahar warn that leaving out large numbers of Pushtuns in the south due to security worries could alienate the country's largest ethnic group and its traditional ruling clan from the democratic process and play into extremists' hands.

"Once you lose the Pushtun vote, then it causes another problem," said one official who asked not to be named. "They then might start to sympathize with the Taliban." Kandahar province spokesman Khalid Pushtun said that a security vacuum in large parts of the south, where people see little or no government presence, could be filled by militants.

"During the Taliban time, its 70,000 or so members were mainly from the local population," he said. "What happened to them? Half of those Taliban are just sitting at home.

"They see that the government is weak, and so are being encouraged to join the 'jihad'." The sense of alienation is heightened by the lack of contact with the international community in remote or unstable areas usually most in need of assistance. Nick Downie, of Afghanistan NGO Security Offices in Kabul, estimates that half the country is off-limits to international aid staff. -Reuters