KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 22 — The evidence considered most damning includes Bibles translated into Farsi and Pashto, dozens of video and audio tapes about the life of Jesus and a book entitled "Sharing Your Faith With a Muslim."
Two weeks ago, 24 aid workers — 2 Americans, 2 Australians, 4 Germans and 16 Afghans — were arrested here in this nation's war-ravaged and hunger-racked capital. Some were accused of preaching the Christian Gospel. Others were accused of listening too well.
Death may be the punishment for these crimes — or at least that is what officials from the ruling Taliban militia have announced. In Afghanistan, laws are in constant flux as austere mullahs fine-tune their ideas for creating the world's purest Islamic state.
"These foreigners were given visas as aid workers, not missionaries," said Abdul Ghafoor Afghani, the Taliban's chief of protocol. "In your country, if I am given a diplomat's visa and I am caught spying, I would not be spared, yes? This is the same."
"We have taken some confessions," he said. "The two American women were caught, as you say, red- handed, in an Afghan's house, where they know they were not to go. They were trying to show a video about Jesus, from his birth to his, what is the word, I think it is crucifixion."
In its fourth year of remorseless drought, in its 22nd year of relentless war, Afghanistan may well be the world's neediest country. The United Nations and hundreds of relief groups provide help that now amounts to more than $300 million a year. But those organizations and the Taliban are often incompatible caretakers, steeped in cultural conflicts and mutual distrust. One dispute follows another, and it seems that when the aid agencies are not threatening to pack it in, the mullahs are threatening to throw them out.
The Taliban are uncomfortable with much of what goes on behind the high walls of the aid workers' compounds: the mingling of unmarried men and women, the beat of rock 'n' roll, the ending of a hard day with a stiff drink. The unseen is often tolerated, though some activities worry the mullahs more than others. Repeatedly, the Taliban have warned against turning Afghan believers into Afghan apostates.
"These laws were well-known to everyone," said Fayaz Shah, head of the United Nations World Food Program in Kabul. "It's like walking in a minefield, and when one blows, you yell, `Why did this happen?' But you should know. You were in a minefield."
The arrested aid workers belong to Shelter Now, a German-based group. For months, its Kabul staff had been under the surveillance of the Taliban's whip-wielding religious police from the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. An intensive investigation has been opened, and the authorities have announced the possibility of "a larger conspiracy."
A prime suspect is the World Food Program itself, Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil said on Tuesday. He did not specify how a reliable donor of wheat might be linked to the conversion of Muslims, but the mere mention of such misgivings is a grave matter. The program is the sole source of nourishment for three million Afghans, about 15 percent of the population. Those woebegone people survive on little more than flatbread and weak tea.
The potential of more arrests has left the aid agencies in fear. People say the Shelter Now episode could eventually lead to a huge withdrawal — or expulsion — of the agencies. That would be catastrophic for the needy.
That dreadful prospect complicates the moral judgments of aid workers who would ordinarily ache with sympathy for their jailed colleagues. As it is, commiseration often is coupled with anger. Many people here presume that the arrested foreigners were guilty of reckless proselytizing; however well-intentioned the preaching, that forbidden endeavor to save a few dozen souls has imperiled thousands of lives.
"Why did they break the law, especially this law?" asked an American who insisted on anonymity. "Worse yet, they dragged their Afghan workers into this. After some political games, the foreigners will probably be kicked out of the country as their punishment. But the Afghans, I am afraid they are going to be killed."
Peter Schwittek, who runs an aid group that operates schools in mosques, said he once spoke about proselytizing with George Taubmann, a fellow German who heads Shelter Now in Kabul. "If you discuss these things with Mr. Taubmann, he tells you, `No, we never formally evangelize, but if our staff feels compelled to do so, O.K., but it's not a policy of our agency.' "
The first to be arrested were the two American women, taken away on Aug. 3. Their names are Dana Curry and Heather Mercer, and they are said to be in their mid-20's. Anxious parents have arrived in Pakistan, hoping to get visas to Kabul. Still ahead will be heart-rending details about young and adventurous zealots aspiring to do good deeds.
On Aug. 5, Mr. Taubmann himself was arrested along with dozens of others, including a large assemblage of Afghan children who were later released.
"Some of the Shelter Now people have claimed that all their Christian materials were for personal use," said Mr. Afghani, the chief of protocol, "but I do not believe one needs thousands of audio cassettes to make a study of the Pashto language."
"Of the Afghans, some are said to have been teachers of the others, and to do that I would think they must be considered converts who by Shariat law face execution," he said.
Though the Taliban control nearly all of the country, most of the world declines to recognize them as a legitimate government. In return, the Taliban have now refused the customary right of consular access to the imprisoned foreigners.
On Tuesday, diplomats from the United States, Australia and Germany left Kabul in frustration after a week of fruitless attempts to see their countrymen. They were allowed only to pass on supplies from the aid workers' families: toiletries, writing materials, Oreo cookies, Pringles potato chips and a variety pack of Nature Valley crunchy granola bars.
"There doesn't appear to be a well- defined legal system here, at least for this case," said David T. Donahue, the exasperated American envoy. "We've been told that once the investigation is complete, it will be turned over to Mullah Omar, the supreme leader."
If the reclusive, one-eyed Mullah Muhammad Omar is indeed the last word, he might consult his own Edict No. 14, a July 31 decree concerning the behavior of foreign nationals. It regards "inviting Afghans to any religion apart from Islam" as a less serious offense than "taking photographs of living creatures" or "eating the meat of the pig." Punishment is 3 to 10 days in prison and then expulsion.
But the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a work in progress, not yet five years old. The rules for behavior are singularly constraining, and yet there always seems more to add. In March, even small boys were commanded to wear turbans to school. In May, two giant statues of Buddha — an ancient heritage — were destroyed because they depicted the human form. In June, spectators at soccer matches were ordered to restrict their cheers to the chant "God is great!"
By and large, the Taliban leadership hails from refugee camps, religious schools and villages, and their education has focused on the ideology of jihad and the wisdom of the Koran. For them, governance has been a confounding puzzle.
But now as they grow more accustomed to the reins, they also more resent the independence of the aid groups in their midst. In the past, much of this criticism involved lifestyle. The Taliban thought the aid workers were spendthrifts with donated money, drawing high salaries, driving expensive vehicles, living in large houses.
These days, the Taliban seem as intent on overseeing budgets and planning as behavior. With millions being spent, they want to sign off on projects and look at the books. In a recent interview, Mullah Muhammad Hassan, the powerful governor of Kandahar Province, rebuked the United Nations for squandering money.
"The U.N. is paying $2,156 per tube well, and I can have them dug for $500," he said, rooting through his pockets for the scraps of paper that held his arithmetic.
In May, a beautiful and modern surgical hospital in Kabul closed within weeks of its opening. The builders, the Italian aid group Emergency, shut down to protest a raid by the religious police, who beat up some staff members after finding men and women lunching in the same room. But what has kept the hospital closed since then is a disagreement about whether the Afghan employees must be hired through the Ministry of Public Health.
"This is our country and we want things run with our consultation," said Mullah Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai, the deputy minister of health.
Kabul is a city of two million people, almost all destitute. In a civil war from 1989 to 1996, as many as seven armies blasted away at one another with artillery and rockets. Now much of the city looks like the detritus of an ancient ruin. At daybreak, the place seems ghostly until squatters lift themselves from the wreckage they use as nightly shelter.
These are people ordinarily grateful to the aid groups and slow to take the Taliban's side in conflicts. But they overwhelmingly support the arrest of the Christians and the jailing of any murtads, Muslims who have deserted their faith. If the price of bread and blankets is denial of the Holy Prophet, they say they would prefer to defiantly perish.
"These people supposedly came here to help the Afghan people, and instead they have used their position to do the dishonorable," said Ahmed, a young man with a beard already lengthy enough for a Biblical epic. "I think these people should die."
A 27-year-old soldier was equally emphatic about his deep beliefs. There is only one religion, he said. God sent Islam to refine the teachings of all other faiths. It is eternity's final word.
He then considered the gloriousness of this knowledge and said he wished to share it with all mankind. "Converting someone to Islam is the greatest thing a person can do," he said. "Such an act is a way to go straight to Heaven."