How do you explain the sudden Taliban decision to retract an earlierundertaking to protect Afghanistan's historical and cultural heritage?
This issue has been under consideration for sometime now and the decisionwasn't taken suddenly. Our culture and museum department officials had asked theTaliban authorities whether they should display the statues in the museums ornot. Some of these statues were already stored in the museums while others wereretrieved by the Taliban through seizures from smugglers and on account ofimproved security measures. Our supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar Mujahidreferred the issue to a committee of Ulema (religious scholars) who after athorough debate came up with the "Fatwa" (decree) that all statuesmust be destroyed. The Amirul Momineen (as Mulla Omar is addressed by hisfollowers) then made the "Fatwa" public and directed the ministries ofculture and promotion of virtue and prevention of vice to implement it. We havecooperated with foreign archaeologists, experts and donors in the past topreserve Afghanistan historical and cultural heritage and would continue to doso in future.