NPR: The last time the Taliban were in power, at the direction of then-leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, they smashed ancient statues and other objects in this museum that they deemed un-Islamic and idolatrous… “We used to show a film about the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas on that TV,” he says — adding that
AP: The National Museum of Afghanistan is open once again and the Taliban, whose members once smashed their way through the facility destroying irreplaceable pieces of the country’s national heritage, now appear to be among its most enthusiastic visitors. Click here to read more (external link).
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript: The National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul had once been ranked one of the most important museums in Asia, home to over 100,000 objects excavated in Afghanistan. Over the years, however, stray bombs and looting had depleted about 70-percent of the collection and much of the museum building by the mid-1990s. Click here