In this bulletin:

• Battle at Afghan base leaves 34 dead
• Afghan convert leaves Afghanistan for asylum in Italy
• Afghan Christian Granted Asylum in Italy
• Afghan MPs say asylum-seeking Christian must not escape
• Afghan president urges Taliban to join peace process
• Afghanistan: Outgoing Foreign Minister In Dark Over Sacking
• Aussie troops set for Afghanistan mission
• 46 schools set ablaze in Afghanistan last year
• Iraq, Afghanistan decisive battlegrounds – Blair
• Canada’s role in Afghanistan underestimated: ambassador
• What Islam says on religious freedom
• Afghanistan not alone in prosecuting converts
• A Kandahar soap story
• Saudis, with Pakistani help, working on nuclear programme

Battle at Afghan base leaves 34 dead

Kandahar (AFP) - US-led troops battled Taliban rebels who attacked a base in south Afghanistan, leaving an American and a Canadian soldier dead along with at least 32 insurgents, officials said.

Coalition forces also destroyed two Taliban headquarters buildings containing weapons and bomb-making material during several hours of fighting in insurgency-hit Helmand province, a coalition statement said on Wednesday.

The attack was the biggest on a coalition base in months and came about two weeks after Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime pledged a new spring offensive. Militants attacked the coalition base in Sangin district in the early hours of the morning with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

Coalition attack aircraft dropped three 500-pound bombs and two 1,000-pound bombs and also fired high-explosive rockets, guided missiles and incendiary rounds, spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody told AFP. Four coalition troops and an Afghan soldier were wounded in the firefight.

A man who identified himself as representing the Taliban, Yousuf Ahmadi, said Taliban militants had launched the attack. The coalition said at least 12 insurgents were killed in the initial effort to beat back a "significant enemy element".

It later reported a further 20 enemy casualties "as part of an early-morning engagement that continued into daylight hours as coalition forces defeated a large enemy element that was attempting to retreat into sanctuaries," the statement said.

The coalition then discovered large caches of munitions as they overran the Taliban buildings and the insurgents fled, the statement said. Thirteen US troops have now died in hostile action in Afghanistan this year. The Canadian soldier named as Private Robert Costall was the first from his country to die in combat here in 2006.

Helmand is one of the provinces worst hit by an insurgency launched by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban after they were removed from government in November 2001 following an attack led by the United States.

Sangin has been particularly dangerous for the security forces. Six Afghan soldiers were killed there Tuesday when a bomb struck their vehicle which burst into flames, southern army corps commander General Rahmatullah Raufi said.

The United States has about 19,000 troops in the coalition based mainly in the insurgency-hit south and east to root out Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Canada deployed 2,300 troops to southern Kandahar province last month and took command of the coalition forces in the province, the birthplace of the ultra-conservative Taliban. The country has this year lost two soldiers in a car accident and a Canadian diplomat was killed in a suicide attack in January.

About 3,500 British troops are due to deploy to Helmand in the coming weeks. The first of the soldiers, including engineers, are already on the ground to prepare for the arrival of the main force.

The province is the main producer of Afghanistan's crop of illegal opium, which makes up around 90 percent of the world's supply. Experts have said the Taliban are tied up in the drugs trade, which many believe is funding the insurgency.

US troops led the invasion of Afghanistan when the Taliban, which took power in 1996 and effectively ended a brutal four-year civil war, refused to surrender Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Violence mostly blamed on the Taliban-led insurgency claimed around 1,700 lives last year, with

Afghan convert leaves Afghanistan for asylum in Italy

Kabul (AFP) - An Afghan Christian who avoided the death penalty after converting from Islam left Afghanistan for Italy where he has been granted asylum, the Italian embassy said.

"He has left and he is expected in Italy by tonight," an embassy official told AFP hours after Italy's cabinet offered Abdul Rahman asylum. The official would not say exactly how and when Rahman, 41, had left Afghanistan.

Italy decided to offer him asylum at a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Labour Minister Roberto Maroni said in Rome. "The decision has been taken. The matter has been resolved," he told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

The premier of Germany's Saarland state, Peter Mueller, had also said Rahman would be "warmly welcome," the German daily Die Welt reported.

Rahman was freed from jail in secret on Monday night but was kept under tight security at an undisclosed location after calls for him to be put to death in line with Islamic Sharia law.

He was arrested around a fortnight ago under Sharia, which says he should be sentenced to death unless he reverts to Islam.

Afghan Christian Granted Asylum in Italy

Afghanistan's parliament demanded Wednesday that the government prevent a man who faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity from being able to flee the country. Italy granted asylum to Abdul Rahman, 41, and the Foreign Ministry said he would arrive there "soon," maybe within the day.

Rahman was released from prison Monday after a court dropped charges of apostasy against him because of a lack of evidence and suspicions he may be mentally ill. President Hamid Karzai had been under heavy international pressure to drop the case.

Rahman was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of the capital late Monday. Justice Minister Mohammed Sarwar Danish said Tuesday that Rahman was staying at a "safe location" in Kabul. His current whereabouts were unknown.

The Italian government granted asylum to Rahman after Muslim clerics called for his death. "I say that we are very glad to be able to welcome someone who has been so courageous," Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.

Afghan lawmakers debated the issue Wednesday and said Rahman should not be allowed to leave the country. However, they did not take a formal vote on the issue.

"We sent a letter and called the Interior Ministry and demanded they not allow Abdul Rahman to leave the country," parliamentary speaker Yunus Qanooni told reporters on behalf of the entire body. Interior Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Rahman was put on trial last week for converting 16 years ago while he was a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He was carrying a Bible when arrested and faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws.

The case caused an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Karzai.

Muslim clerics condemned Rahman's release, saying it was a "betrayal of Islam," and threatened to incite violent protests.

Some 500 Muslim leaders, students and others gathered Wednesday in a mosque in southern Qalat town and criticized the government for releasing Rahman, said Abdulrahman Jan, the top cleric in Zabul province.

He said the government should either force Rahman to convert back to Islam or kill him. "This is a terrible thing and a major shame for Afghanistan," he said. Rahman has appealed to leave Afghanistan, and the United Nations has been working to find a country willing to take him.

Italy has close ties with Afghanistan, whose former king, Mohammed Zaher Shah, was allowed to live in exile in Rome with his family for 30 years. The former royals returned to Kabul after the Taliban fell.

The United States and Germany welcomed Rahman's release from prison. "Obviously it's good news that he has been released," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

Germany, a major donor to Afghanistan that has about 2,000 troops in the NATO security force, also expressed satisfaction. "I think this is a sensible signal to the international community but also for the situation in Afghanistan," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Afghan MPs say asylum-seeking Christian must not escape

Kabul (AFP) - Afghanistan's parliament said that a Christian who avoided the death penalty for converting from Islam should not be allowed to escape the country, as the man looked to Europe for asylum.

A German state leader reportedly said that 41-year-old Abdul Rahman would be welcome to live there, while Italy was due to decide whether to make a similar offer.

But Afghan lawmakers said after a heated two-hour debate in parliament that the Supreme Court's weekend decision to release Rahman from trial for apostasy was "contrary to the laws in place in Afghanistan."

"To prevent the escape of Rahman from Afghanistan, his leaving Afghanistan must be prohibited," said a summary of the debate read out by speaker Yunus Qanooni and approved by MPs.

It was unclear if the parliament's decision amounted to an order to bar Rahman from leaving Afghanistan if he were offered asylum abroad.

Many of the legislators said Rahman's release violated Islamic Sharia law and the constitution and would affect Afghanistan's security and trust in the government and judiciary.

A prominent MP and a well-known commander in the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s, Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf, charged that the case was a plot to create "a rift between the West and Afghanistan."

The case has provoked an international outcry, with Kabul's Western allies -- on whom it depends to rebuild after years of war -- putting unprecedented pressure on the new democratic government to honor freedom of religion.

The convert was freed in secret on Monday night but has been kept under tight security at an undisclosed location after protests in Afghanistan called for him to be put to death in line with Islamic Sharia law.

The premier of Germany's Saarland state, Peter Mueller, told the German daily Die Welt that Rahman would be "warmly welcome". Rahman, who converted in Pakistan about 16 years ago, lived in Germany for some time before returning to Afghanistan in around three years ago.

Italy has also expressed willingness to take in Rahman and deputy prime minister and foreign minister Gianfranco Fini was to ask the cabinet later Wednesday to formally offer him asylum.

Rahman was arrested around a fortnight ago under Islamic Sharia law, which says he should be sentenced to death unless he reverts to Islam. The Supreme Court put the case on hold Sunday amid doubts he was fit to stand trial after testimony from his relatives that he was mentally unstable. He also admitted to hearing voices, court officials said.

His case is being seen as a test of how far the conservative country has moved on from the rule of the hardline Islamist Taliban, who were removed in a US-led operation after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The United States, which is Afghanistan's main donor and has led the protests in the Rahman case, on Tuesday hailed the decision to free him.

"The president has made it clear that we expect people's religious freedoms to be protected. And so we'll continue to make that clear to the government of Afghanistan as they move forward," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Around 200 people demonstrated against the court's decision in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif Monday, demanding Rahman's execution. No further demonstrations were reported but Afghans continued to demand that he be put to death.

"We are an Islamic country and should implement the rule of the Koran," said Shah Baran, a tribal elder in the eastern province of Zabul. "He must be killed."

Afghan president urges Taliban to join peace process – AFP, 03/29/2006

QALAT - Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on Taliban fighters to stop being "slaves" to those organising violence as he made a rare visit to a hotbed of a crippling insurgency. Karzai visited eastern Zabul province, which has seen regular suicide blasts, car bombings and other attacks over the last four years.

The president was surrounded by Afghan and US security forces for the day-long visit. Military helicopters hovered overhead as he opened a hospital, a school, a mosque and a madrassa, or Islamic school.

"You should know that those who give you weapons and tell you to go and kill teachers, destroy your land, they want to keep you as their slaves," Karzai said on Tuesday.

"Again I call on you to come and to take part in the reconstruction of your country and not to destroy your land," he said. "Once again I call on those Taliban who have not come (into the peace process) to come and rid themselves from being slaves of others," he said.

Karzai repeated calls for cooperation from Pakistan, from where Afghan officials say Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders are directing the insurgency in     Afghanistan.

"Our hope from our neighbours, especially Pakistan, is that we fight terrorism together. Peace in Afghanistan is their peace," he said.

Relations between the neighbours, allies in the US-led "war on terror", have deteriorated in recent weeks in a row about Afghan intelligence that says Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants have been sighted in Pakistan.

The Taliban, supported by Pakistan during their 1996-2001 hold on power, were toppled in a US-led invasion launched when they did not hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Islamists have vowed they will regain power and their insurgency is hobbling Afghanistan's attempts to rebuild after nearly three decades of war. The revolt is blamed for most of nearly 1,700 killings last year, although most of the dead are militants killed by Afghan and foreign security forces.

Afghanistan: Outgoing Foreign Minister In Dark Over Sacking - By Massoumeh Torfeh

Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's long-serving foreign minister, insists that his removal from the government will not end his political career.

PRAGUE, March 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The outgoing foreign minister of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, says he still does not know why Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided to sack him. In a press conference on March 27, his first since Karzai announced a cabinet reshuffle on March 22, Abdullah insisted that, after over 21 years at the center of the Afghan political scene, he will not leave it now.

Clearly trying to put a brave face on the decision to remove him from the post he had occupied since shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Abdullah rejected rumors that there had been foreign policy differences between him and the president.

"I am not aware of any such thing," Abdullah said, adding that there had been no mention of policy differences in his conversations with Karzai.

"Naturally I would have preferred it if I had been consulted and known what the problems may have been," Abdullah said. "I am sure there must have been problems," he continued, but said he now needed "some time to judge for myself what could have led to this decision."

Abdullah expressed some unhappiness, saying that "I told the president that, naturally, anyone removed from a post -- even a lower-ranking one -- would be unhappy." However, he was restrained in his comments. "I can fully understand that an elected president has to choose a team that suits him," he said. "He has to be responsive to the people."

Asked repeatedly what public post he now hopes to fill, he replied that he did not know but that he is certain of one thing -- that he will not leave the political scene. Abdullah first came to prominence in the 1980s when he became a senior adviser towards Ahmed Shah Masood, a ethnic-Tajik resistance leader.

Given that record, "you can imagine not being in the post of a minister is not going to deter me," Abdullah told reporters. "The end of my ministerial post will not be the end of my service to Afghanistan, I can say that much."

Abdullah, who will remain the country's acting foreign minister until the new cabinet is approved by the Afghan parliament, was the last major leader of the Northern Alliance in the cabinet. The president had earlier, in a reshuffle in 2004, removed Mohammad Fahim from the Defense Ministry and Yunis Qanuni from the Interior Ministry.

Aussie troops set for Afghanistan mission

SYDNEY, Mar 29 (SANA): Australian troops will soon be taking up a new mission in Afghanistan, and a report out today is warning that it will be one of the most dangerous that they’ve faced in recent years.

From July, 200 Australian soldiers will begin securing and rebuilding one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan, the central southern province of Uruzgan.

Meanwhile, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute issued a report looking at the state of play in Afghanistan and the effect on Australia. The report warns that the cost of seeing it through may escalate.

From July, 200 Australian troops will join a Dutch-led Provisional Reconstruction Team working in central southern Afghanistan. The report’s author, Ellie Wainwright, argues that there’s a possibility of Australian casualties, with insurgents likely to target international forces.

I think it’s more dangerous because the south and the east of Afghanistan are really the heartland of Taliban support, and they’re also now the real epicentre of insurgent activity, and that makes this deployment I think more dangerous than others.

And also, Australia’s 200 personnel are not going to be special forces and in terms of a threat environment for non-special forces, this is most risky Australians have been involved in for a while.

46 schools set ablaze in Afghanistan last year

KABUL, March 29 (Online): Afghan Education Ministry said that unidentified armed group set ablaze 43 schools during last year.

Radio Tehran quoted the Education Ministry in this regard as saying that most of the schools were in Kandahar, Helmand, Logar, Sarabal, Laghman and Kunar provinces where majority of the attacks are carried out on official buildings.

Afghan officials hold Taliban responsible for these incidents, however no body has so far been arrested. Several teachers have lost their lives in attack.

Iraq, Afghanistan decisive battlegrounds – Blair - Monday March 27

CANBERRA (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday that Iraq and Afghanistan were decisive battlegrounds for the values the West believes in and warned of the risk of a U.S. retreat into isolationism.

In a speech to the Australian parliament, Blair made his case for the West to get involved in a broad range of issues, not just on the security front, in its struggle against Islamist militants.

U.S. allies Australia and Britain both have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Australian opposition leader Kim Beazley has said a future Labor government would withdraw Australian troops as soon as possible.

Blair, America's closest ally in Iraq, acknowledged that the war there had divided both Australia and Britain, but portrayed Iraq and Afghanistan as critical battlegrounds.

"Every reactionary element is lined up to fight us. They know if they lose, a message is sent out across the Muslim world that strikes at the heart of their ideology," Blair said.

"We must not hesitate in the face of a battle utterly decisive as to whether the values we believe in triumph or fail ... If the going is tough -- we tough it out. This is not a time to walk away. This is a time for courage to see it through," said Blair, who received a standing ovation.

Outside parliament, about 100 anti-Iraq war protesters, holding placards saying "B.liar" and "Troops out of Iraq", blew whistles and trumpets to try to disrupt the visit, but they were kept well away.

There was no repetition of the heckling that greeted U.S. President George W. Bush when he defended the invasion of Iraq in the Canberra parliament in October 2003.

In his introductory speech, Australian Prime Minister John Howard paid tribute to "the strength of Tony Blair's conviction to the fight against terrorism".

Beazley noted that he took a different position from Blair on Iraq "but that doesn't diminish our regard for your leadership".

Terry Hicks, whose son David is in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, listened to Blair's speech in the public gallery.

Hicks, whose son is fighting a legal battle for British citizenship that might ease his release from Guantanamo, said he was not disappointed at Blair's refusal to meet him. "Deep down, I didn't expect it anyway," Hicks told Reuters.

Hicks did meet an official from the British High Commission (embassy) in Canberra on Monday to discuss his son's case. Blair said that while the battle over values was most fierce in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western countries also had to get involved elsewhere and on a range of other issues.

"Wherever people live in fear, with no prospect of advance, we should be on their side ... whether in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea," he said, calling for an "active foreign policy of engagement" by a strong alliance, including the United States.

Calling the anti-American feeling seen in parts of world politics "madness", Blair said: "The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved."

After this week's Israeli general election, "we must redouble our efforts to find a way to the only solution that works: a secure state of Israel and a viable, independent Palestinian state", Blair said.

He called for action to combat conflict, famine and disease in Africa, a focus on the threat of climate change, and voiced support for a new world trade liberalisation agreement.

Canada’s role in Afghanistan underestimated: ambassador - Speech at university met by protest - Andrew Sain Staff

James McKay demonstrates “being detained” in University College. Photo by Tessa Vanderhart.

Canada’s role in Afghanistan came under fire with a presentation from ambassador David Sproule last week. Sproule spoke on the roles that Canada’s military is currently playing in Afghanistan and the challenges that remain in establishing a democratic government.

A large crowd filled the seats and aisles to see the March 23 presentation, and a small demonstration was held in the hallway of University College before the speech began.

Sproule served as the Canadian High Commissioner to Bangladesh in 2004, and in October of 2005 he became Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan. He has served in Singapore, Bangkok and Washington, as well as several divisions of the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa.

He identified a lack of physical security, a lack of institutional and human capacity and poverty as the outstanding struggles in Afghanistan today.

“The judicial system . . . is quite broken down and rudimentary and it lacks the capacity to support a modern economy,” he said. He explained that there is no framework for trade or private investment in the country, making the development of industry that much more difficult. “You can’t make any of those assumptions in Afghanistan,” he said.

Sproule also addressed the issue of the narcotics trade in the country. “Estimates are that 60 per cent of the Afghanistan economy is based in one way or another on the narcotics trade. This dependency makes it very, very difficult to extricate Afghanistan from what could be a very insidious mix between the insurgents and the drug lords,” he said.

Sproule said that Canada is involved in providing alternative crop choices for farmers who are involved in growing poppies for use in the manufacture of narcotics.

He said that he feels that Canada’s presence is both necessary and beneficial to Afghanistan. “Don’t underestimate the challenges that we face, and don’t underestimate the accomplishments that have been achieved already. In Afghanistan in the last four years, the per capita income has almost doubled. There is more security for the average Afghan than they have experienced in the last 25 years. Women have rights and a life that they never enjoyed under the Taliban. Schools are being put up,” he said.

The presentation left approximately an hour for questions, some of which were on topics as diverse as the state of Aboriginal reserves and the role of the Canadian military in Haiti. There was considerable heckling during the question period, which contrasted the silence during the presentation itself.

“I’m very pleased to see that Afghanistan is of considerable interest both in Winnipeg and in other places I have visited,” Sproule said. “It is in Canada’s national interest to be in Afghanistan, and it’s in Afghanistan’s people’s interests to have us there, and I’m very proud to be a part of this; it is quite the undertaking,” he said.

Sproule’s presentation on Canada’s role in Afghanistan was met by a small group of protestors who carried signs reading ‘Canada out of Afghanistan’ and ‘occupation is a crime.’ The protest was organized by the World People’s Resistance Movement (Winnipeg). Three police officers were also present, and one said, “I’d assume that since you guys are anti-occupation, you’re also anti-violence,” before leaving.

James McKay demonstrated “being detained”: dressed in an orange jumpsuit with a black hood covering his face, the University of Winnipeg student was the focus of media attention.

“It has nothing to do with democracy; it has to do with power and domination,” McKay said. McKay said that rather than simply raising awareness, the goal of the group is to motivate students to action.

“We’ve just got to show people that what Canada is doing in Afghanistan is not what it’s being painted out to be,” he said. “It’s a dictatorship, dressed up as the best thing in the world.” With files from Tessa Vanderhart.

What Islam says on religious freedom - By Magdi Abdelhadi, 27 March 2006
BBC Arab affairs analyst

Several hundred people have protested in northern Afghanistan over a decision to dismiss a case against Abdul Rahman, who converted to Christianity. He had been charged with rejecting Islam and potentially faced the death penalty. But what do Islamic teachings say about the issue?

Freedom of belief is enshrined in the Koran - the foremost textual authority in laying down the principles of Islamic law. But there is disagreement among Muslim scholars as to the limits of that freedom.

"There is no compulsion in religion" (al-Baqarah, 256); is one of the most quoted phrases from the Koran to back up freedom of belief.

There is no clear-cut text in the Koran, however, that calls for the killing of apostates. But those who call for the execution of Muslims who abandon their faith base their judgement primarily on the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, also known as the hadith.

These constitute a secondary textual authority - albeit weaker than the Koran itself - used in formulating Islamic law, or Sharia.

Abdelsabour Shahin, an Islamist writer and academic at Cairo University, told the BBC that although Islam in principle enshrined freedom of belief, there were severe restrictions on that freedom.

"If someone changes from Islam to kufr (unbelief), that has to remain a personal matter, and he should not make it public," he said.

In other words, an apostate in a Muslim society, according to this view, forfeits his freedom of expression. If he goes public he should be executed, says Dr Shahin.

But if the Koran has not stipulated the killing of apostates, how does Dr Shahin come to this judgement?

He says there is an authoritative and unambiguous hadith (saying of the prophet) which calls for the killing of the apostate - "He who changes his religion should be killed", says Dr Shahin, quoting from the sayings of the prophet.

Others disagree. Professor Abdelmouti Bayoumi of the Islamic Research Academy in Cairo told the BBC that the generality of the aforementioned hadith has been restricted by another hadith from the prophet.

Dr Bayoumi says that according to that hadith changing one's religion alone is not enough for applying capital punishment. He says the apostate has also to be found working against the interests of the Muslim society or nation - only then should he be executed.

Dr Bayoumi's stance is a good example of modernisers, who try to reconcile between Islamic tradition and modern practice. An apostate in this perspective is a traitor. He is punished, not for what he believes in, but for what he does and which could be harmful to the interests of the state.

But Dr Shahin says the mere fact that someone goes public with his apostasy "amounts to fitna (sedition, or civil strife), he is thus like someone fighting Islam, and should therefore be killed."

Writers like Dr Shahin derive their position from the interpretations of classical scholars, all of whom have endorsed the principle of capital punishment for apostates.

The question is, how have they adopted this stance in the face of abundant evidence from the Koran itself in favour of freedom of belief?

Gamal al-Banna - an Islamic thinker and brother of the founder of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - says the reason for that is political and has nothing to do with the Koran itself.

Mr al-Banna says the classical interpretations are more than 1,000 years old, and were formulated at a time of state building where conformity and social cohesion were deemed more important than personal freedom.

He adds that "each and every individual has the right to change his religion without any conditions whatsoever.

"That person has also the right to campaign for his views, provided he does so peacefully," he told the BBC. Today, views like that of Mr al-Banna are in the minority.

Afghanistan not alone in prosecuting converts - March 28, 2006 - BY JASPER MORTIMER

CAIRO, Egypt -- In the Middle East, Jordan is known as a tolerant country, but when a Muslim man converted to Christianity two years ago, a court convicted him of apostasy, took away his right to work and annulled his marriage.

Such prosecutions are rare -- because they're hardly ever needed. The law heavily discourages -- or outright forbids -- conversion by Muslims in most nations in the area. The powerful influences of family and society are even stronger.

The sensitivity of the issue is highlighted by the case of an Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.

After an Afghan court dropped the charges against Abdul Rahman, Muslim clerics threatened to incite people to kill him, and hundreds demonstrated against the court decision.

But Afghanistan isn't the only U.S.-allied government where Muslim converts to Christianity face prosecution.

Saudi Arabia neither permits conversion from Islam nor allows other religions in the kingdom. There are no churches, and missionaries are barred.

While Islam accepts Christianity as a fellow monotheistic religion, Islamic Shariah law considers conversion to any religion apostasy, and most Muslim scholars agree the punishment is death. Saudi Arabia considers Sharia the law of the land, though there have been no reported cases of executions of converts in recent memory.

In Sudan, a man who allegedly converted was arrested in 2004 and reportedly tortured, according to the State Department.

In Kuwait, a court convicted a Muslim man who publicly proclaimed his conversion to Christianity, but didn't sentence him since the criminal code did not set a punishment. Other countries in the region, such as Egypt, don't have laws criminalizing apostasy, but those who do convert can still face prosecution.

In May, an Egyptian man who converted to Christianity was arrested on suspicion of "contempt for religion," a charge that entails a sentence of up to five years, said Hossam Bahgat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The man remains in custody without charge, Bahgat said.

Authorities in Egypt and most other Arab countries will not recognize a conversion from Islam in official documents, such as identity papers, which usually state a person's faith.

Even if a convert isn't prosecuted, "the issue is the pressure they are going to face from their families, the religious establishment, their friends and associates," said Fadi al-Qadi, a Middle East spokesman for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

There are exceptions. In strongly secular Turkey, a convert can walk into a Demographic Records office, sign a declaration saying they have converted from Islam to Christianity get a new identity card reflecting the change.

A Kandahar soap story - The Guardian 03/27/2006 By Declan Walsh

Watery shafts of evening light stream into the Kandahar office in which Sarah Chayes is having her picture taken. The American's startlingly bright eyes burrow into the lens, then drop away as she clips on a pair of earrings. "Sorry," she apologises with a smile. "People tell me I should look more like a woman."

Usually Chayes accepts the advantages of androgyny. As a lone western woman in Afghanistan's most archly conservative city, it seems a wise choice. Since arriving four years ago, she has become an honorary man - talking tough politics with rough men, driving her own car and keeping a gun under the bed. "I've never had to use it," she explains, "except for a little target practice. It's a Kalashnikov, for Christ's sake. It's hardly rocket science."

But Chayes is no macho toughie. Quite the opposite. The daughter of liberal Harvard law professors, she arrived in Kandahar as a correspondent for America's National Public Radio to report on the fall of the Taliban in 2001, then couldn't bring herself to leave. "Four and a half minutes [the length of her longest report on NPR] can't convey much," she says. "You want to roll up your sleeves and see if you can do it yourself."

Doing it involved setting up an aid agency, rebuilding a bombed-out village and launching a dairy cooperative. Little wonder Oprah Winfrey gave her a "Chutzpah" award. "Afghans admire people with balls, and I don't back down easily," she says. "I think that wins me some respect." It has also won her some enemies. Last year she found a bomb outside her front gate. It didn't explode, but the message was clear: be quiet.

Chayes is vocal in her disillusionment with the new Afghanistan. She rails at the drug lords and corrupt officials in power, and despairs at the spineless rule of Hamid Karzai. She locked horns with Gul Agha Shirzai, the warlord-governor of Kandahar, who has since been removed from power. But her moment of truth involved "that guy there", she says, hooking a thumb towards a photo of a gruff-looking Afghan man clutching a cup of tea.

Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal was Kandahar's police chief and Chayes's unlikely best friend. "He was the most gifted public official I have known - unnervingly sophisticated and always trying to turn things for the better," she says. Last June, Khakrezwal was killed by a massive bomb that ripped through a Kandahar mosque during a prayer service. Chayes believes the murder showed the rot within the new Afghan state - a major theme of her book, Punishment of Virtue, due for publication later this year.

Now she is taking on a new challenge. In a country where growing opium poppies is the surest way to make money, she is trying to convince the farmers who feed the world's heroin markets to become soap merchants, and wean them off the drugs trade. The cooperative she has set up produces seven different lines of hand-moulded soaps that resemble polished lumps of marble. Some are scented with wild rose, apricots or pomegranate seeds. Others are coloured using liquorice or walnut husks. They sell for £1.50 each, and she is looking for buyers.

It is a small-scale and quixotic enterprise - the co-op exports through the local American base and hasn't the capacity to supply The Body Shop, even if it wanted to - but in the long run, "this is the only way to beat heroin," she says. "We have to re-weave the economic fabric of the country ... so that people will have too much to lose from a return to war.

Saudis, with Pakistani help, working on nuclear programme

Berlin (AFP) - Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.

It says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia in aircraft laid on by the oil-rich kingdom.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them took the opportunity to "disappear" from their hotel rooms, sometimes for up to three weeks, it quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998 thanks to the work of the now-disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Cicero, which will appear on newstands on Thursday, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons "because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme".

The magazine also said satellite images prove that Saudi Arabia has set up in Al-Sulaiyil, south of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles. According to some Western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]