BBC ordered out of Afghanistan

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have shut down the BBC's office in the capital Kabul and ordered its correspondent to leave.

Officials said the BBC used derogatory language against the Taliban and its reporting on the demolition of the towering Buddhas at Bamiyan was misleading and hostile.

The BBC correspondent has been ordered to leave Afghanistan within 24 hours, said Abdul Salam Zeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan. He gave no further details.

In a statement, the Taliban's Information Ministry accused the BBC of ignoring the orthodox Muslim militia's point of view and calling it "illiterate".

Last month, the Taliban ordered the destruction of pre-Islamic statues of Buddha, saying they were idolatrous and had no place an Islamic society.

Ignoring international outrage, the Taliban demolished most of the statues in the past two weeks, including the two towering statues of Buddha hewn from a cliff face in central Bamiyan in the third and fifth centuries.

The taller of the two, at 170 feet, was believed to be the world's tallest standing Buddha, while the other measured 120 feet.

The Taliban, who now rule 95% of Afghanistan, captured Kabul in 1996 from the warring mujahedeen factions which took the city after the fall of the communist Government in 1992.

Since then, the Taliban have imposed a harsh version of Islam and are trying to capture the remaining 5% of the Afghan territory still controlled by the northern-based opposition alliance.

The Taliban are predominantly Sunni Muslims and Pashtun, Afghanistan's majority ethnic group, while their opposition is made up of mostly ethnic and religious minorities.