Taliban destroyed Mosque in Buddha Demolition

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Taliban destroyed Mosque in Buddha Attack

Taliban toiled for a month to topple ancient Buddhas

"The explosions merely blew off part of the statue's feet,

residents said, but they destroyed the adobe-and-wood Fatha mosque

at the base of the sandstone cliff from which the Buddha was hewn."

 

By David Zucchino / Los Angeles Times

Marc Kaufman / Washington Post

 

A young Afghan looks at one of the badly damaged Buddha carvings.

 

* The Buddha statues, built between the third and fifth

centuries, represented a classic fusion of Buddhist and Grecian art.

* They were erected before the Hazaras converted in the ninth

century from Buddhism to Shiite Islam.

* Located along the Silk Road, on which camel caravans plodded

between China and Rome, the Buddhas survived attacks by Genghis Khan

and others for more than 1,600 years.

* The Taliban also destroyed smaller statues and frescoes in the

niches behind the Buddhas and a mosque at the base of the sandstone

cliff from which the statues were hewn.

 

 

BAMIAN, Afghanistan -- It took decades to build the magnificent

stone Buddhas of Bamian. It took the Taliban nearly a month last

year to obliterate them.

The destruction required an extraordinary effort, so complex that

foreign explosives experts had to be brought in and local residents

were forced to dangle on ropes over a cliff face to chip out holes

for explosives. According to witnesses and participants, the Taliban

struggled with ropes and pulleys, rockets, iron rods, jackhammers,

artillery and tanks before a series of massive explosions finally

toppled the statues.

"Every day these Talibs tried to destroy the Buddhas, and every

day the Buddhas remained standing no matter how hard the Taliban

tried," said Ahmad Hussein, 55, a Bamian native who said he watched

the statues slowly disintegrate over a 26-day period in February and

March 2001.

The broad outlines of the destruction have been reported. But the

ethnic Hazara villagers who witnessed the siege or were pressed into

service have provided new details of how the Buddhas, which had

survived for more than 1,600 years, withstood repeated Taliban

assaults before succumbing.

After point-blank artillery and tank fire gouged holes in the

statues but left them essentially intact, the Taliban planted a row

of explosives at the feet of the taller Buddha, the 175-foot statue

known as Solsol, which means "year after year." The explosions

merely blew off part of the statue's feet, residents said, but they

destroyed the adobe-and-wood Fatha mosque at the base of the

sandstone cliff from which the Buddha was hewn.

Realizing that more expertise was needed, the Taliban summoned

two Pakistani and two Arab explosives experts who residents say were

provided by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. It was then that

Hazaras, the Shiite Muslim residents of the region, who were killed

and persecuted under the Taliban's Sunni Muslim rule, were forced to

suspend themselves from the cliffs to carve out cavities for

explosives.

Ali Agha, a wiry man of 28, said he worked for a Taliban group

that called itself Sipah-e-Sahaba, or Guardians of the Friends of

the Prophet. Reaching a niche behind the Buddha's head by climbing

steps cut into the rock face, the Hazaras were lowered on ropes held

by 12 men each.

Dangling off the sheer cliff face, supported by thin ropes that

frayed as they wore against the sandstone, the Hazaras chipped away

with tire irons, chisels and sharpened steel rods, Agha said.

The Hazaras had been kidnapped by Taliban forces that had burned

and ransacked their villages, the residents said. They had been

digging foxholes for the Taliban when they were dragooned into

demolishing the statues.

Agha managed to gouge out a hole in the smaller Buddha's left

shoulder after eight hours, he said. A Pakistani explosives expert

who was lowered on an elaborate pulley system rigged with safety

harnesses planted explosives in the cavity.

The Taliban also forced the men to haul a jackhammer to the top

of the smaller Buddha to pound out holes for explosives, residents

said.

Through it all a senior Taliban official -- who some believed to

be the Taliban defense minister, Mullah Obaidulla -- was ferried in

by helicopter every few days to supervise the demolition, said Said

Mohammed, 47, who lives in one of the caves in the Buddha cliffs.

The Taliban began by trying to obliterate traces of breasts on

the smaller, 120-foot Buddha known as Shahmama, or "king mother."

The original breasts had worn away but a slight bulge remained,

residents said.

The destruction was ordered in February 2001 by Taliban leader

Mullah Mohammed Omar, who called the Buddhas "idolatrous,false

idols" and "gods of the infidels," the latter a reference to the

Hazaras. Under its extreme interpretation of the Koran, the Taliban

outlawed the depiction of any living thing.

Now, an inscription from the Koran, spray-painted by Taliban

members beside the larger Buddha's alcove, reads: "The just replaces

the unjust."

Day after day, residents said, the valley was smothered in smoke

and dust, first from artillery and tank fire, then from the

explosives.

"It didn't happen all at once," said Hussein, the Bamian

native. "It was little by little, day by day. They tried 50

artillery rounds, 100 tank rounds, and they only made small holes.

Then there were explosions, so many every day."

After failing to topple the larger Buddha by attacking the legs,

the Taliban began taking the statue down from the top. Residents

said the explosions took off the head and shoulders, but metal

support rods set into the torso in the 1930s slowed the demolition.

For the final, massive explosions, the Taliban forced Hazaras

from their homes in the valley. Those who resisted were imprisoned

or killed, residents said.

They watched the Buddha's torso crumple, and then his flowing

robes and finally his sturdy legs and feet.

Afterward, they said, the Taliban members celebrated and taunted

the Hazaras. "They told us: 'We have killed your gods,'" said

Mohammed, the Hazara elder.

But the Hazaras did not worship the Buddhas, or consider them

gods. The Buddhas were priceless symbols of the Hazara people, who

regret that they could not save them.

"We loved our Buddhas very much," Hussein said.