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KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban assailants on a motorbike gunned down a Christian aid worker in Kabul on Monday, and the militants said she was killed for spreading her religion — a rare targeted killing of a Westerner in the nation’s capital.

Gayle Williams, a 34-year-old dual British-South African national who helped handicapped Afghans, was shot to death as she was walking to work about 8 a.m., said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

A spokesman for the militants said the Taliban ordered her killed because she was accused of proselytizing.

“This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to the people of Afghanistan,” Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press. “Our (leaders) issued a decree to kill this woman.”

Britain’s secretary of state for international development called the killing a “callous and cowardly act” and said Williams was in Afghanistan to help ease poverty.

“To present her killing as a religious act is as despicable as it is absurd — it was cold-blooded murder,” Douglas Alexander said.

A spokeswoman for the aid group, SERVE — Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises — said it is a Christian organization but denied it was involved in proselytizing.

“It’s not the case that they preach, not at all,” said the spokeswoman, Rina van der Ende. “They are here to do NGO (aid) work.”

Afghanistan is a conservative Islamic nation. Proselytizing is prohibited by law, and other Christian missionaries or charities have faced severe hostility. Last year, 23 South Korean aid workers from a church group were taken hostage in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed, and the rest were later released.

Monday’s attack adds to a growing sense of insecurity in Kabul. The city is now blanketed with police checkpoints. Embassies, military bases and the United Nations are erecting concrete barriers to guard against suicide attacks.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed two German soldiers and five children in Kunduz province to the north, said Mohammad Omar, the provincial governor. NATO confirmed some of its soldiers were killed or wounded in the attack.

West of Kabul, meanwhile, assault helicopters dropped NATO troops into Jalrez district in Wardak province on Thursday, sparking a two-day battle involving airstrikes, the military alliance said in a statement Monday. More than 20 militants were killed, NATO said.