KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban had warned her repeatedly, but the veteran public-health worker insisted on carrying on work as usual at her clinic in rural Kandahar.

The midwife's defiance would prove fatal: Two months ago, the insurgents shot her dead.

What had enraged the Islamist rebels, however, was a surprising issue, more often debated in the West than Afghanistan. As part of a fledgling family planning program, the worker known only as Zarghona was distributing condoms and birth-control pills, and the insurgents called that sacrilege.

"We took up arms against the Infidels in order to bring Islamic law to this land," said a chilling letter delivered later to her employer, bearing the seal of the Taliban military council.