BBC News Online: World: South Asia

Kabul aid workers 'scared'

The aid workers have been held at a Kabul school

The workers are being held in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which has been one of the targets in the US-led raids on Afghanistan.

On the eve of Sunday's bombardment of Afghan targets, the Taleban authorities offered to release the aid workers if the US stopped threatening military strikes.

The foreigners could face the death penalty if found guilty of trying to spread Christianity.

Physically 'alright'

"I did speak to Kabul and I was assured that they are safe, that they are physically alright, although they are scared by what has happened," lawyer Atif Ali Khan told Reuters news agency in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Mr Khan, a Pakistani national, said he was trying to get a visa to return to Kabul to defend the aid workers.

But he said the visa was dependent on how long the attacks on Afghanistan lasted.

The trial was disrupted by the 11 September attacks on the United States, when diplomats and relatives of the workers left Afghanistan.

The aid workers - four Germans, two Americans and two Australians - were detained on 5 August. They deny the charges against them.

The Taleban closed down the operations of their charity, Shelter Now International, and produced as evidence bibles and cassettes to support their claim that the foreigners were trying to convert Afghans to Christianity.

They are the only foreign aid workers left inside Taleban-controlled Afghanistan.

Mr Khan told Reuters they were feeling the strain of their isolation.

"There is pressure building on them, they are the only foreigners in the city," he said.

The whereabouts of 16 Afghan aid workers who were arrested with them is unknown.