AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN DESTROYED BUDDHA STATUES, SAY EYEWITNESSES








ISLAMABAD, MARCH 10, 2001. /from RIA Novosti's Vladimir Schreter/ -- Taliban soldiers blew up unique Buddha statues in Afghanistan's Bamian province, say eyewitnesses of the vandal act.


	Destruction of the two colossi was on throughout Friday with tanks and dynamite, says Ahmad Bahram, spokesman of the Shi'ite political party, Hezb-e-Vakhdat, which sides with the Northern Alliance.


	The statues were blasted even the day before, specifies Ashraf Nadim of the Northern Alliance with reference to eyewitness accounts. The Taliban put dynamite in holes bored in the statues, which were shattered to pieces by 1 pm, Thursday, he announced.


	As it really was, only the head of the larger statue, 53 metres high, was blown up by the Taliban, while the head of the smaller statue was destroyed as early as 1998 when they seized Bamian, reports the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.


	Journalists and officers of any international organisations are barred off from the province, so reliable information is unavailable.