Taleban show journalists the destroyed Buddhas

The Taleban authorities in Afghanistan have been showing foreign journalists the results of their demolition of two giant Buddhist statues earlier this month.

The journalists say the taller of the two statues cut into the mountainside in central Bamiyan province has been completely destroyed, and only part of an elbow of the shorter Buddha remains.

Taliban officials said it had been a hard job.

They said it took twenty days to destroy the statues, which they had condemned as idolatrous and contrary to Islam. Other Islamic scholars outside Afghanistan said there was no need to destroy the statues, as they were no longer being worshipped.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service