M A I N   N E W S

Rockets used to blast statues

Kabul, March 4
Taliban soldiers blasted two towering ancient statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft weapons, according to the first eyewitness account from the area today.

Other statues throughout the country were being demolished with rockets, tanks and explosives, ridding the nation of reminders of its pre-Islamic past.

Residents of central Bamiyan, where the two ancient statues of Buddha hewn from a cliff face in the third and fifth centuries are located, said Taliban soldiers began attacking the statues at least three days ago.

“I could see the Taliban soldiers firing anti-aircraft weapons at the two statues. That was three days ago,” said Safdar Ali, a resident.

The Taliban have ignored pleas from an outraged world to stop the destruction of the ancient relics from their pre-Islamic past.

“We are not against culture, but we don’t believe in these things. They are against Islam,” the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told the Associated Press in a telephonic interview from southern Kandahar — the headquarters of the Taliban.

Yesterday, Quatradullah Jamal, the Taliban’s Information and Culture Minister, said that troops had destroyed two-thirds of all statues in Afghanistan as well as large parts of the two giant statues of Buddha.

“His information is accurate information,” said Muttawakil.

By tomorrow — exactly one week after the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, ordered all statues destroyed — the task will be complete, Jamal said.

The two Buddhas, 52.5 and 36 meters tall, were damaged in fighting. Witnesses who have climbed to the top of the Buddha statues say that Russian soldiers carved their names in the statues following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began in 1979.

Caves at the foot of the statues had become home to families of refugees and a place for soldiers to stash their weapons.

The destruction of statues began after Omar ruled that they were idolatrous and against the tenets of Islam. Others argue that Islam does not ban images, only their worshipping.

Muttawakil rejected offers from several countries as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. AP

Taliban refuse to pay heed to envoy

Kabul, March 4
UNESCO special envoy Pierre Lafrance today failed to persuade Afghanistan’s Taliban militia to stop the demolition of the country’s pre-Islamic cultural heritage, a report said.

Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel said he had detailed discussions with Lafrance in the militia’s southern bastion of Kandahar, but could see no reason to stop the destruction, the private Afghan Islamic Press reported. AFP