KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Afghanistan's Taliban militia rulers closed public bathhouses in the war-battered Afghan capital, saying Saturday that Islam forbids men to publicly display their bodies.

The 30 bathhouses, where dozens of men would wash together, closed last week.

"Islam doesn't allow even men to expose their bodies in public," Ahmedullah Sahafi, a spokesman for the Taliban, said.

The houses served mostly the city's poorest, who do not have running water. The Taliban rules say they will build small, single-occupancy public bathhouses to replace them. Public baths for women were closed in 1996, when the Taliban took over Kabul.