JAHANABAD, Pakistan (AP) – When the Taliban blew the face off a towering, 1,500-year-old rock carving of Buddha in northwest Pakistan almost five years ago, it fell to an intrepid Italian ...

Afghanistan is selling tickets to the ruins of recently-destroyed monuments, the Washington Post reported. The Taliban demolished 1,500-year-old Buddha in 2001 in a purge of non-Islamic art. Its ...

BAMIAN, Afghanistan – The three Taliban soldiers gazed down at the gaping hole in the 125-foot cliff where one of Afghanistan’s two great Buddha figures once stood and wondered aloud who was to blame ...

KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite pleas from an outraged world, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban have destroyed most of the ancient relics from their nation's pre-Islamic past, including parts of two towering ...

In March 2001, the Taliban shocked the world by dynamiting the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. Two decades later, they are back in power and claim to be making strides to preserve Afghanistan's ...

From almost the first moment the Taliban were driven from power at the end of 2001, art historians, conservationists and others have dreamed of restoring the Buddhas. Tarzi, however, has another idea.

When the Taliban were done dynamiting the two colossal stone Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, they partied hard. They danced, hooted and slaughtered a cow. But Syed Mirza Hussain wasn’t ...

Afghanistan’s 6th C. Bamiyan valley Buddha, before (left) and after (right) its destruction in March 2001. (images via Wikipedia: before & after) (click to enlarge) While it became a worldwide symbol ...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The radical ruling Taliban movement began smashing all statues from Afghanistan's rich cultural past today, defying international appeals to save the ancient artifacts. Taliban ...

"I think the Taliban have understood how much the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas damaged their reputation," said Valery Freland, director of the ALIPH foundation, the International Alliance for ...