KABUL father, John

It wasn't known how long the relatives and diplomats would be allowed to remain with the detained aid workers, who are being held in the heart of the city at a reform school for delinquent children -- many of them street children arrested for either begging or scavenging.

On Sunday, International Red Cross officials visited the imprisoned aid workers, but because of their rules of confidentiality have been unable to say anything about the detainees' condition.

Curry's mother said her daughter suffers from asthma.

Abdul Ghafoor Afghani, chief of the protocol department under the ruling hard-line Taliban militia, said Dana Curry was ill over the weekend. She was taken home briefly to collect some unspecified medicine and was also taken to a hospital in Kabul where X-rays were taken.

The two American women are both in their 20s. Their hometowns have not been released. The other six jailed foreigners have been identified as Germans George Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf; and Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas.

The penalty for a foreigner accused of proselytizing is expulsion.

The Taliban say the Afghan teachers working for Shelter Now International and currently in Taliban custody are believed to have converted to Christianity, said Afghani.

"In one of the foreigner's confessions she said 'we had hired Afghan teachers' and if they are teaching the Christian message then that means they have converted already," said Afghani.

However, he said Islam allows Muslims, who have converted to Christianity, three to 30 days to recant their conversion and embrace Islam again.

Afghani said the Taliban have allowed the aid workers to keep their Bibles, despite the charges of proselytizing they face.

"These detainees have been allowed to keep their Bibles with them, but in English. We know that this is their religion and we respect that," said Afghani.

"The problem was not with the Bibles in English, but with all the Bibles we found in Persian and Pashtu," the two main languages of Afghanistan, he said in an interview.

While he has not seen everything confiscated by the Taliban, Afghani said he was told that the numbers of Bibles found translated into local languages was "enormous."