BEIRUT: Roads around a U.N. headquarters in Beirut were closed Friday as part of measures to protect the building following a series of attacks on the United Nations.

All roads leading to the U.N. Economic and Social Committee for Western Asia (ESCWA) headquarters in Downtown Beirut were closed as of early Friday, a security source told The Daily Star.

Affected by the closure were Western and Arab media outlets, including the Associated Press (AP) and Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel, whose offices are located within the vicinity.

The source said members of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) prevented AP and Al-Arabiya employees from parking their cars at the underground parking lots at the building that houses their offices.

The source said the measure was a 24-hour drill conducted by the ISF as part of security measures at the request of the United Nations.

An official at ESCWA confirmed the measure, saying it comes after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ordered a “global review” of all security arrangements following the August car bomb attack against the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria and the two recent attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon.

On Aug. 27 a car loaded with explosives crashed into the main U.N. building in Nigeria’s capital, killing at least 18 people in one of the deadliest assaults on the international body in a decade.

“The U.N. and the government of Lebanon have been engaged in discussions on how best to address potential vulnerabilities. In this context and against the background of the two recent bomb attacks against UNIFIL, it has been decided, for the time being, to take these measures and to minimize the presence of U.N. staff at the U.N. House/ESCWA in Beirut until such vulnerabilities are addressed,” Bahaa EKoussy, Director of the U.N. Information Center in Beirut, told The Daily Star.

The measure reportedly drew the ire of head of the Beirut municipality Bilal Hamad.

The local daily Al-Liwaa said Friday that Hamad sent out a protest letter urging that part of the closed road be kept open to “facilitate movement.”

The chairman of the Public Works and Transportation parliamentary committee, Future Movement MP Mohammad Qabbani, has also brought up the issue.

Qabbani demanded that a “thorough study” be conducted before closing what he termed “the main arteries of Downtown Beirut.”

“Safety of the ESCWA building and securing traffic [flow] in Downtown Beirut are two important issues, and therefore a thorough study must be conducted with regards to security measures to be taken in the vicinity of the building,” Qabbani said.

“We won’t accept that such measures lead to traffic congestion … even if this meant that ESCWA move its headquarters,” Qabbani told a Beirut radio station.