Carved into a mountainside above the central city of Bamiyan in the third and fifth centuries, were the Buddhas, considered international cultural treasures. The larger of the two, at 175 feet high, is thought to have been the world’s tallest standing Buddha. The smaller statue was 115 feet tall. The sandstone rubble that is all that remains of the ancient wonders. The ancient monuments escaped damage during the 10-year Soviet invasion and Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s but they were demolished in 2001 by the Taliban regime, which said the Buddhas violated Islamic bans on human images and idolatry.
An Afghan official Maulavi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi who was the Taliban’s governor of Bamiyan province when the fifth-century statues were blown up with dynamite and artillery in March 2001 has been shot dead. According to police, he was killed on his way to prayers in Kabul. Mr. Mohammadi was elected in 2005 to represent the northern province of Samangan in Afghanistan’s parliament.
Zulmai Khan, Kabul’s deputy police chief, said a gunman dressed as a construction worker shot and killed Mr. Mohammadi and wounded one of his two bodyguards with an AK47 assault rifle before fleeing.
Via: Dailymail
