Kabu - Afghanistan's Taliban rulers yesterday rejected the arguments of leading Islamic scholars and protests from around the world and said they were obliterating the last traces of the country's ancient Buddhist statues. A delegation from the 55-nation Organisation of Islamic Conference left the southern Afghan town of Kandahar after two days of talks with the Taliban failed to produce any result.
In Paris, UNESCO confirmed that two towering statues of Buddha near the central town of Bamiyan, had been destroyed, and condemned the action as "a crime against culture".