Muslims destroy shrines in Timbuktu

[Angrboda]

It was the spring of 2001. I was in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, together with my brother Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghan resistance against the Taliban, and Bismillah Khan, who currently serves as Afghanistan's interior minister. One of our commanders, Commandant Momin, wanted us to see 30 Taliban fighters who had been taken hostage after a gun battle. My brother agreed to meet them. I remember that his first question concerned the centuries-old Buddha statues that were dynamited by the Taliban in March of that year, shortly before our encounter. Two Taliban combatants from Kandahar confidently responded that worshiping anything outside of Islam was unacceptable and that therefore these statues had to be destroyed. My brother looked at them and said, this time in Pashto, "There are still many sun-worshippers in this country. Will you also try to get rid of the sun and drop darkness over the Earth?"

— Yahya Massoud, brother of the anti-Taliban and resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud



Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide bombers, allegedly belonging to Al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan's Takhar Province on September 9, 2001.