Nick Meo in Kabul

Almost half of Afghanistan is now too dangerous for aid workers to operate in, a leaked UN map seen by The Times shows.

In the past two years most foreign and Afghan staff have withdrawn from the southern half of the country, abandoning or scaling back development projects in rural areas and confining themselves to the cities or the less risky north. The pullback compounds the problems of the Government in Kabul, which has struggled to extend its authority to the regions and provinces, which are increasingly lawless or Taleban controlled.

Development has always been touted as a key factor in Western efforts to win over Afghans and bolster support for President Karzai but in the past six years little has been done on the ground in the critical south and east.

The failure to help ordinary Afghans or to rebuild areas damaged by fighting in provinces such as Helmand has caused huge resentment and is exploited by Taleban propaganda.

The unpublished map, acquired by The Times in Kabul, is for UN staff and aid workers and illustrates risk levels across the nation. It shows a marked deterioration in security since 2005, when compared with a similar map from March of that year.

Then only a strip along the Pakistan border and areas of mountainous Zabul and Uruzgan provinces in the south were too dangerous for aid workers. Now nearly all the ethnic Pashtun south and east is a no-go zone categorised as high or extreme risk and there are even pockets in the north of the country that are becoming dangerous for aid workers.

In the past two years nearly 40 Afghan and several foreign aid workers have been killed. The threat comes from the resurgent Taleban, which increasingly targets projects, and from bandits.

The map has emerged after a row in Kabul about just how much of the country the Taleban now controls.

A report by the Senlis Council, a think-tank, last week claimed that the rebels have a presence in half the country. An opinion poll published on Monday found that only 42 per cent of Afghans rate US efforts positively compared with 68 per cent in 2005, and also suggested that support for the Taleban was growing.

Brigadier-General Carlos Branco, an ISAF spokesman, insisted yesterday that the Taleban controls only five out of fifty-nine districts in southern Afghanistan. But the withdrawal of aid workers is undeniable.

Matt Waldman, the Kabul-based Oxfam policy adviser, said that the organisation had withdrawn all its staff from southern Afghanistan in June because of safety fears. He said that the decision had been a painful one, adding: “Peace in Afghanistan cannot be achieved without more determined efforts to reduce poverty, and urgent measures must be taken to enhance aid effectiveness.”

Nato has taken on much development work in dangerous areas through provincial reconstruction teams, in which soldiers build schools or dig wells as part of a “hearts and minds” programme. Aid professionals say that much of their work is poor. The other main method of carrying out development work in the south is through for-profit corporations whose staff venture out only in armed cars protected by heavily armed mercenaries.

Nic Lee, from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, said: “It is getting worse. The Taleban are making significant inroads in provincial centres.”