Taleban shut down two more agencies

Twenty-four aid workers were jailed in early August

The Taleban have shut down the offices of two more Christian aid agencies just weeks after the arrests of aid workers for allegedly proselytising.

Taleban officials said they had closed the offices of International Assistance Mission (IAM) and Serve, under orders from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The Taleban say they have evidence against the aid workers

There have been no arrests, but the offices of both agencies have been sealed and expatriates given 72 hours to leave Afghanistan, said a foreign ministry spokesman.

He gave no reason for the closures, but they follow the arrests of 24 aid workers employed by the German-based group Shelter Now International, charged with preaching Christianity.

IAM and Serve

IAM, which runs two eye hospitals and several clinics, has been active in Afghanistan for more than 35 years. It has been operated by 50 mostly American expatriate workers.

Its foreign volunteers, most of them Pashtu and Persian speakers, have lived in Afghanistan with their families in some of the country's poorest neighbourhoods, without electricity or running water.

The BBC's Afghanistan correspondent Kate Clark says that IAM provides the best medical eye care in the country, taking surgeons and opticians with mobile clinics to the remotest districts so that people can get tests, glasses and simple operations.

It is also very highly regarded for its AIDS work.

Serve, also a Christian organisation, is a smaller operation that provides solar panels as well as other shelter-related projects.

No surprise

The Taleban authorities had warned that they planned to expand their investigation of Shelter Now International to include other international aid organisations.

No arrests were made and foreign employees of the two organisations are believed to have left the country.

Six foreign workers of Partners in Aviation and Communications Technology, which is affiliated with IAM, have also left their offices in Kabul, saying it was "too dangerous to remain".

Earlier in the week, the Taleban said that the eight foreigners of Shelter Now International - two Americans, four Germans and two Australians - would go on trial for preaching Christianity.