London, Sept 2 (IRNA) Britain's Royal Navy has become the first of the country's three Armed Services to promote a Muslim to one of its top ranks.

Commodore Amjad Hussain was appointed Thursday to be a Rear- Admiral, the equivalent rank in the Army is major-general and in the Air Force an air vice-marshal, but no Muslim has yet reached such a level yet.

Hussain, who was born in Pakistan and emigrated with his family to Britain when he was five years old, said he was "really astonished" at the number of people who have expressed shock that we have a rear-admiral in the Royal Navy from a background like mine.

"Some of my friends in other European countries have said it wouldn't happen here. So I think that's a mark of how far Britain has progressed," he told a press conference in London.

The 48-year-old admiral has been in the Royal Navy for 30 years.

In his new post, he is due to run the tri-service Defence Logistics Organization in Bath, south west England from next Monday.

Previously he was a commander of the naval base at Portsmouth on the southern coast of England. He has served in the fishery protection squadron and was a weapons engineer on the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, which was deployed in the Persian Gulf.

The Ministry of Defence has described the admiral's promotion as showing that "hard work and professionalism, rather than your background, are the key to a successful career in the Armed Forces." Hussein, who was sponsored by the Navy to read engineering, science and business administration at university, also underlined the policy of Equality and Diversity used by the Armed Forces to reach out to Britain's 10 per cent ethnic minority population.

"For those kids who have limited their ambitions because they think parts of society or walks of life are closed to them, for kids with backgrounds not dissimilar to mine, there are lots of opportunities in the UK," he said.

On a practical level for Muslims, he said that the navy had moved a long way by providing prayers facilities for everyone and making halal food available.

But despite recruitment drives, the latest official figures show that there were only around 305 Muslims, 203 Hindus, 220 Buddhists, 90 Sikhs and 65 Jews in the armed forces last year, compared with some 183,000 Christians.

On the controversial issue of Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, the admiral said that he appreciated it was a policy that was not unanimously popular with all sections of UK society.

"Large parts of the community of the UK are not completely content with our involvement," he said, but added that for himself personally as a military officer, he was in the "implementation business and I get on with it."