Italian aid organisation Emergency has pulled its international staff out of Afghanistan, accusing the Kabul government of putting its security at risk and detaining one of its workers without justification.
Emergency, which played a key role in securing the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist last month, said in a statement on Wednesday it had flown some 40 non-Afghan aid workers to Dubai.
"Emergency has been obliged to temporarily withdraw its international staff from Afghanistan for security reasons," the organisation said.
"The Afghan government is using every means possible to make us leave," it added.
The head of Afghan secret services, Amrullah Saleh, has accused some Emergency personnel of "supporting terrorists" and singled out the Afghan director of the organisation's hospital in Lashkar Gah, Rahmatullah Hanefi.
Hanefi acted as mediator in negotiations with Taliban guerrillas holding Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was released on March 19. A day later Hanefi was arrested by Afghan police.
Speaking to ANSA by phone on Wednesday, an Afghan government spokesman reiterated Kabul's suspicions that Hanefi played a role in Mastrogiacomo's abduction.
The spokesman, who expressed "regret" over Emergency's withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Hanefi was currently under investigation and would remain in detention until enquiries were over.
According to Emergency, the claims by Afghan authorities that some workers have links to terrorists amount to an open invitation to attack the organisation's workers and hospital facilities.
The dispute between Emergency and the Afghan government comes alongside related recriminations levelled at Italian Premier Romano Prodi by the relief organisation.
Emergency's founder and head, Gino Strada, railed against Prodi on Monday for doing too little to secure Hanefi's release, accusing him of taking a "Pontius Pilate approach.
Mastrogiacomo was released after Karzai, on Prodi's prompting, set free five Taliban members who had been held in Kabul prisons.
Strada also accused Prodi of doing little to win the release of Mastrogiacomo's interpreter Adjmal Nashkbandi, who was supposed to have been released with the Italian but who was held for another two weeks and then decapitated on Easter Sunday.
Prodi has said the government did everything possible to help Nashkbandi.
Emergency, which runs about 35 clinics and hospitals all over Afghanistan, said that these facilities would continue to function with a limited capacity thanks to local staff.
APPEAL TO AFGHAN PEOPLE.
The organisation's statement was printed in Afghan languages as well as English in a bid to ensure local people were aware of the situation and the stand-off with Karzai's government.
Emergency says it has given health care to 1.4 million Afghan people since 1999. It appealed to these people to "remind" the Karzai government of its humanitarian mission in Afghanistan.
Foreign ministry sources in Rome said the government saw Emergency as a precious presence in many crisis areas, and particularly in Afghanistan.
Emergency's withdrawal is expected to be discussed in the Italian parliament on Thursday when the government reports to MPs on the situation in Afghanistan and gives details of Mastrogiacomo's release.
The row between Prodi and Emergency has put leftwingers in the centre-left coalition in a delicate position, having to choose between support for the premier and solidarity with an organisation close to leftwing pacifists.
"We have to work harder to answer the questions that Gino Strada is asking. If he says not enough has been done, it should be taken as a spur to do more," said Welfare Minister Paolo Ferrero, one of the Communists in Prodi's cabinet.
