Just a newspaper info, Maulana Taqi Usmani younger bro of Mufti Rafi Usmani, whom quoted above for his fatwa, visited Qandharr (Afghanistan) with a group of Ulemas (from all over the World) to talk about said destruction but Talibaan refused to listen to the world's Islamic Scholars' Voice and finally that destruction took place.
[This message has been edited by Nadeem (edited March 13, 2001).]
Taliban rule out compromise on statues
KABUL, March 12: A Taliban leader on Monday ruled out any compromise with scholars from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and said workers were obliterating the last traces of Afghanistan's ancient statues of the Buddha.
An OIC delegation was in Kandahar to try to halt the Taliban's campaign to destroy all statues.
"The (OIC) Al Azhar delegation is in Kandahar and they have no religious justification to show that our work is non-Islamic," Afghan Information Minister Qudratullah Jamal said.
"We would repeat to them as we have to other delegations that we are not going to back away from the edict and that no statues in Afghanistan will be spared," Jamal said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Sunday after meeting Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil it was probably too late to save the statues.
Speaking of Afghanistan's best-known Buddhist statues, two towering images carved into a sandstone cliff in central Bamiyan province, Jamal said the demolition there was nearly finished.
"The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can't knock down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff; they are firmly attached to the mountain," Jamal said of the destruction ordered by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar two weeks ago.
"Work is going on like other days," Jamal said. "We have reached the last stages, but I cannot say for sure when it would finish entirely."
The OIC delegation, led by Qatar Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdullah Zaid al-Mahmoud, included Egypt's Mufti Nasr Farid Wassel.
But Annan emerged from a Sunday meeting in Islamabad with the Afghan foreign minister doubting there was anything to save.
"He confirmed that all movable statues have been destroyed and the destruction of the two (Bamiyan) statues had begun but he could not tell me the status of the demolition," Annan informed a news conference. "I had hoped for much better news."
A Taliban spokesman in Kandahar said demolition of the Buddhas continued on Sunday after being 80 per cent complete by Saturday.
Muttawakil said at a separate news conference the order by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was "totally an internal religious matter" and could not be halted.
The destruction has triggered worldwide alarm; Western countries see the attacks as an assault on world heritage and countries with many Buddhists consider the smashing of the statues as religious bigotry.
The destruction of Afghanistan's heritage could make it more difficult to raise aid for the impoverished country, Annan said, urging donors to remember assistance is not aimed at the rulers.-Reuters