Arab governments - who have agreed a series of measures to combat Islamic militancy - are concerned by the connection between militant Islam and Afghanistan. Our regional reporter, Caroline Hawley, explains.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s brought thousands of volunteers from across the Arab world to take part in what they saw as a holy war against the Soviet invaders. It was here that many first learned how to use weapons.

Since the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, veterans of the war have travelled on to fight in the name of Islam in several conflicts around the world. Arab Afghans, as they became known, fought alongside the Bosnian Muslims, and in the separatist war in Chechnya.

But they also returned to their own countries, where some found use for their new battle skills against their own governments. They've been active in the armed Islamic movement in Algeria and in the Egyptian militant group, the Gamaa al-Islamiya.

The best known of the Arab Afghans is a Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, from one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, whom Washington has accused of bankrolling Islamic militancy around the world.

When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, he went to live in Sudan. But the Sudanese government - under pressure from France and the United States - expelled him last year, and he returned to Afghanistan, where he now lives in Taleban-controlled territory.