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 ...

For an aspiring tourist mecca, the Oriental Buddha Kingdom Theme Park in the lush mountains of Leshan is doing a pretty woeful job. Its main attraction, a 37-meter replica of one of the famed Bamiyan ...

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan -- The world mourned last year when the hard-line Taliban regime, decrying false idols, blew up the priceless, 15-centuries-old Buddha statues hewn into a cliff here. But for the ...

Clad in a safari suit, sun hat, hiking boots and leather gloves, Zemaryalai Tarzi leads the way from his tent to a rectangular pit in the Bamiyan Valley of northern Afghanistan. Crenulated sandstone ...

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 ...

When the Taliban were driven from power in 2001, they left behind a broken country and an infamous act of destruction: reducing to rubble two... Preserving Memory of Afghanistan's Giant Buddhas ...

I read with great sadness the Taliban's claim that they have already destroyed most of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and their boast that whatever remained would soon be gone. As a young child growing up in ...

"First published in the United Kingdom in 2012 by Profile Books ... London"--Title page verso. "For 1,400 years, two colossal Buddhas overlooked the Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan. The ...

KABUL, Afghanistan - A former regional governor who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the Taliban's reign was elected to the Afghan parliament last month, ...