ASIA

Cash-strapped Taliban selling tickets to ruins of Buddhas it blew up

By Rick Noack
June 15, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EDT



A tattered Taliban flag flies from the roof of a hotel in Bamian, Afghanistan. The recesses that once sheltered giant figures of the Buddha can be seen in the cliff face beyond. (Elise Blanchard for The Washington Post)

BAMIAN, Afghanistan — The three Taliban soldiers gazed down at the gaping hole in the 125-foot cliff where one of Afghanistan’s two great Buddhas once stood and wondered aloud who was to blame for its destruction 22 years ago. ... “This is the identity of our country,” said Kheyal Mohammad, 44, wearing a camouflage cap as he bent over a railing at the top of the giant cavity. “It shouldn’t have been bombed.” ... The soldiers, taking a rare day off from military training to visit the site, agreed that the people who had destroyed the work were “careless,” and it should be rebuilt. “If God wills,” Mohammad exclaimed.

In 2001, Taliban founder Mohammad Omar declared the Buddhas false gods and announced plans to destroy them. Ignoring pleas from around the world, Taliban fighters detonated explosives and fired antiaircraft guns to smash the immense sixth-century reliefs to pieces. ... The attack on the treasured ancient monument stunned the international community and cemented the Taliban’s reputation as uncompromising extremists.



A young guard sits last month near the cavity where one of the two 1,500-year-old Buddhas stood before the Taliban destroyed them in 2001. (Elise Blanchard for The Washington Post)



Taliban soldiers visit the site in May. (Elise Blanchard for The Washington Post)



The soldiers survey the site from the top of one of the recesses. (Elise Blanchard for The Washington Post)

With the group now back in power, Bamian holds new symbolic and economic importance to the cash-strapped region: Officials see the Buddha remnants as a potentially lucrative source of revenue and are working to draw tourism around the site. They suggest their efforts are not only a gesture to archaeologists, but also reflect a regime that’s more pragmatic now than when it first ruled from 1996 to 2001.

“Bamian and the Buddhas in particular are of great importance to our government, just as they are to the world,” Atiqullah Azizi, the Taliban’s deputy culture minister, said in an interview. He said more than 1,000 guards have been assigned to protect cultural heritage across Afghanistan, restricting access and overseeing ticket sales. Staffers at Kabul’s national museum were surprised last month to see senior Taliban officials at the inauguration of a prominent museum section dedicated to Buddhist artifacts.

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Pamela Constable in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

By Rick Noack
Rick Noack is a Paris-based correspondent covering France for The Washington Post. Previously, he was a foreign affairs reporter for The Post based in Berlin. He also worked for The Post from Washington, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Twitter https://twitter.com/rick_n