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Statues Destroyed As Annan In South Asia
KABUL, March 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghanistan's two colossal Buddhist figures were completely destroyed Sunday, the Taliban militia said, as a delegation of key Islamic clerics arrived in a last-gasp bid to save them.
"Work on the destruction of the Bamiyan statues has already started and there is not much left," Mutawakel said after meeting Annan for almost an hour in Islamabad.
A delegation of key Islamic clerics, including Shiekh Youssif al-Qaradawi, arrived in a last-gasp bid to save them.
"Consider them finished," Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said from the Islamic militia's stronghold in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Although he said he did not have exact details, he expected the demolition of the ancient Buddha figures to have been completed after they were razed by up to "90%" with dynamite on Saturday.
The extent of the damage is impossible to confirm as the militia has blocked independent observers from visiting central Bamiyan province, the scene of heavy fighting recently.
Amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts, Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel held talks in neighboring Pakistan Sunday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
"I walked away from the meeting not very encouraged," Annan said.
"He [Mutawakel] confirmed that all moveable statues have been destroyed and the destruction of the two statues [in Bamiyan] have begun but he could not tell me the status of the demolition."
He said the Taliban were alone even among the Islamic countries, and warned that the destruction of pre-Islamic heritage would not help mobilize the donor community at a time of grave humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
"I think they will be doing themselves a great deal of disservice and a disservice to Islam and Muslims. Hardly any Islamic scholars have supported their decision," the secretary general said.
"I do not think it's going to please [donors] but we have to think of the people who are in a tragic, desperate situation who have nothing to do with the decision to destroy the Buddha statues."
A million Afghans are facing famine this year due to a severe drought and the deprivations of civil war.
As the Taliban ignored international protests and calls to preserve the statues, clerics from the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Egypt arrived in Kandahar for talks with Omar and Islamic scholars.
Egypt's top religious leader, Mufti Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel, told reporters on his departure from Cairo that "from a religious viewpoint it is clear - these statues are part of the humanity's heritage and do not affect Islam at all."
Wassel was traveling with representatives from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, including Qatar's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Mahmud and two top Sunni clerics, Sheikh al-Qaradawi and Mohamed al-Rawi.
Pakistan, the Taliban's closest ally, dispatched Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider to Kandahar on Saturday but he failed to persuade Mullah Omar to withdraw his edict.
Taliban spokesman Mutmaen dismissed rumors Omar was considering ways of softening his edict.
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