Customers crowded the main branch of Afghanistan's largest bank to withdraw deposits a day after the central bank said top executives were replaced amid U.S. reports that it had lost millions of dollars.

Depositors gathered outside Kabul Bank's glass-walled headquarters in the Shahr-e-Nau district of the capital. "I was shocked to hear the propaganda about the bank," said Haji Tamim Sohraby, 24, who owns a construction company. "I have $15,000 deposited and now they are telling me they are out of money, and I was able to take only $1,000."

The bank's chairman and chief executive quit last week to comply with rules against shareholders holding those positions, the central bank governor said yesterday. He denied a Washington Post report that Kabul Bank is in trouble because of millions of dollars in unrecorded loans to allies of leader Hamid Karzai and after it spent more than $160 million on Dubai villas, including for Karzai's brother Mahmoud.