The Taliban authorities expelled the BBC from Afghanistan yesterday for transmitting criticism of the destruction of all ancient statues, including two of the Buddha in Bamiyan.
While much of the country's pre-Islamic heritage has been destroyed, Taliban officials continued to offer conflicting versions of the fate of the giant Buddhas, Afghanistan's most famous archaeological treasure.
"The destruction of the two statues has been completed. The work was completed last evening [Tuesday] and now there is no trace of the two statues there," the Afghan Islamic Press quoted the Information Minister Minister, Mr Qudrat ullah Jamal, as saying.
But shortly afterwards the Foreign Minister, Mr Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, told a news conference in Kabul that work was continuing yesterday to eradicate the Buddhas.
Mr Muttawakil said the Taliban had spared the idols worshipped by the country's minority Hindu and Sikh population, however. "Their statues will not be smashed as they are worshipping them as part of their religious rituals," he said.
Taliban leaders, who have promised to eliminate all Afghanistan's historic statues on the grounds they are heathen idols, were angered by a broadcast on Tuesday evening by the BBC. After the broadcast described the destruction as barbaric, the Taliban issued an order yesterday for the BBC to close its Kabul office and withdraw its correspondent, Kate Clark.
The Taliban had announced last Sunday the completed destruction of moveable statues such as those in the national museum. The final stages of the destruction came as the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mr Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday to try to save the Buddhas.
The fate of the statues has caused consternation in Sri Lanka where Buddhists form about 70 per cent of the population. The prime minister met President Mohammad Rafiq Tarar of Pakistan and the military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf, yesterday to hear from them of Islamabad's own unheeded appeals for the safety of the statues, Pakistani officials said.
Mr Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO, said on Tuesday it had been powerless to stop the Taliban from obliterating the giant Buddhas. "One of the things we should look into in the future is how to set up a new legal framework with credible punishment for . . . crimes against culture," he said.