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Saturday Morning News

Taleban Destroys Buddhist Statues

Aired March 3, 2001 - 8:38 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Buddhist statues are being destroyed in Afghanistan despite pleas from cultural, political and religious officials around the world. Today, the Taleban militia reportedly used explosives and rockets to destroy two soaring statues of Buddha and militia officials say they've already destroyed two thirds of the country's statues.

Some of the monuments are the most ancient relics in the world. The Taleban ordered the statues destroyed because religious leaders consider them profane and an insult to Islam.

Our next guest has had the rare opportunity to cover Afghanistan. His work is featured in the latest edition of "National Geographic Adventure" magazine and will be the subject of a special this Sunday night on CNBC's "National Geographic Explorer." He is freelance journalist Sebastian Junger and he joins us now this morning from New York.

Hi, Sebastian.

SEBASTIAN JUNGER, EDITOR, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC": Hi, how are you?

PHILLIPS: Great. Thanks for joining us.

Listen, will you set up, please, the civil war that is going on just briefly for us right now. I don't think that a lot of people really understand what's happening in this region.

JUNGER: Well, the Taleban are a militia backed by Pakistan who have taken over most of Afghanistan. They're extremely, they have an extremely fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and they're fighting the last holdout against them, Ahmed Massood, who is the hero of the resistance against the Soviets. He's the last guy, basically, they haven't been able to wipe out. He has about 20 percent of the country in the northeast.

And as far as I -- I spent a month with him. As far as I can tell, he's basically an open-minded, democratic leader and he's trying to take back the rest of Afghanistan.

PHILLIPS: Now, for journalists who don't even dare to take on such an assignment, I mean this video is pretty riveting, what can you tell us from the inside that you know that we don't realize or understand about this genius of guerrilla warfare and his mission?

JUNGER: Well, he's backed by Russia, ironically. He fought them for 10 years. He fought them to a standstill. Now he's backed by them because Russia is so terrified of having the Taleban on their borders. I interviewed prisoners of war in Massood's prison of war camps and they said, they were from many different Islamic countries, the Philippines, from Saudi Arabia, they're from everywhere, and they said they're fighting in Afghanistan to spread fundamentalist Islam throughout central Asia.

Of course, Islam is just another religion in the world, but their interpretation of Islam, the fundamentalist version, really can be very destabilizing in an area and Massood, as far as I can tell, I spent a month with him, is fighting to establish a democratic government in Kabul rather than the religious government, effectively, that's there right now.

PHILLIPS: Now, let's talk about the government that's there now, the Taleban. What is, what's so ravaging about this extreme Muslim group? I mean what's happening to the people and to the country?

JUNGER: Well, their religious edicts are really harsh. Women cannot leave the home without a male relative. Adulterers are stoned to death. Just recently in the news they're destroying 200 foot high statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan. It's terrible because Islam is really, in its -- when it was founded by Mohammed, it was one of the -- maybe the most accepted religion of other religions.

So to destroy a Buddha like that, it's almost blasphemous to Islam, except this interpretation is so extreme. So it's very, very disturbing on a number of levels. The civilians under the Taleban are already starting to revolt a little bit, but of course the regime is a very, very harsh one and it's hard for them, it's not democratic. It's very hard for them to rebel.

PHILLIPS: And you experienced some of the same fears and while, that the people there are experiencing. Tell us about some of the hairy moments where you sort of thought to yourself why am I here.

JUNGER: Well, I think we've just been watching a few of those hairy moments. We were caught on a hilltop position, on the front line position that had just been taken from the Taleban. Again, I was with the troops of Ahmed Massood, the last holdout fighting the Taleban. And they started an artillery barrage and we were stuck there in the trenches for quite a while. We finally got out.

It was really one of the most intense situations I've ever had as a journalist. I sort of realized that, you know, there's sort of limits to what you need to do for a story and I just -- I just hit that limit.

PHILLIPS: Well, the article is incredible and I salute you as a journalist, definitely.

JUNGER: Thank you. PHILLIPS: Sebastian Junger. The article appears in the "National Geographic Adventure" magazine. Also, it's going to be the subject of a special this Sunday night on CNBC's "National Geographic Explorer."

Sebastian, thanks a lot. Come back and tell us about your next assignment, all right?

JUNGER: I will. Thank you.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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