Diplomats to fly to Kabul to see detainees

The aid workers are believed to be detained in this building in Kabul

By staff and wire reports

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Three Western diplomats and two parents have received their Afghan visas to visit Kabul and see eight aid workers held by the Taliban on charges of promoting Christianity.

The diplomats said they intended to fly to Afghanistan later in the day and hoped to see their jailed citizens -- four Germans, two Americans and two Australians -- on Monday evening or on Tuesday.

Relatives of the two detained Americans also obtained visas to see their children, Taliban ambassador Abudl Salam Zaeef said.

Zaeef said the two -- the mother of one detained American and the father of another -- were inside the embassy and were being given visas to go immediately to Afghanistan.

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They would probably join three diplomats given visas earlier in the day who intended to fly to Kabul on Monday afternoon.

"We have a reservation at 4 p.m. (1100 GMT)," Helmut Landes, the spokesman for the embassy and the German diplomat who would travel to Kabul, told Reuters news agency.

The flight comes one day after Afghan authorities let the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) meet the six women and two men who had not been seen by anyone except the Taliban since being jailed in early August.

Sixteen Afghan colleagues were also detained but the ICRC has been unable to see them.

The diplomats from the United States, Australia and Germany had returned from Kabul last Tuesday after a futile weeklong effort to see the aid workers, who were arrested after raids by the religious police.

In Kabul, the ICRC said it planned a meeting with Taliban officials on Monday to follow up on their visit to the jailed aid workers on Sunday and to pick up letters to their relatives.

"After the visit there is always a meeting with the authorities about what we saw but it is strictly confidential," spokesman Mario Musa told Reuters. "We will pick up messages for their relatives."

Food program

The ICRC, which maintains strict neutrality in any conflict, was silent on the condition of the aid workers, saying only that detainees were "happy" to see them.

All eight detainees worked for German-based Christian aid group Shelter Now International.

The Taliban say their supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar will decide what punishment will be meted out to the foreigners and local staff. Under their strict interpretation of Islam it could include death sentences.

The Taliban say they recovered bibles, tapes and CDs about Christianity in the local Dari and Pashto languages that were being used to convert Muslims to Christianity.

The Taliban later said they had widened the investigation into alleged links with other groups, including the U.N. World Food Programme.

The arrests followed months of worsening ties between the Taliban and the numerous foreign aid groups helping impoverished Afghans cope with more than two decades of war and now a devastating drought.

The Taliban, saying their investigation into the aid workers was nearing completion, had said on Saturday they would now allow visits by the ICRC, relatives and representatives of the prisoners' governments.