RASC News Agency: In a chilling testament to the Taliban’s systematic destruction of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage, new revelations from Bamiyan province point to the covert excavation and theft of an ancient mummy by individuals intimately connected to the Taliban regime. This incident marks yet another chapter in what appears to be a calculated campaign to erase the country’s historical identity one artifact at a time. According to credible local sources, Mohammad Khan Ghazi the brother and chief of staff to the Taliban-appointed governor of Bamiyan, Mawlawi Abdullah Sarhadi recently spearheaded a secret nighttime excavation in the Yaka Daraakht Jagra Khel area. The operation, carried out under the cover of darkness and away from any institutional oversight, led to the unearthing of a centuries-old mummified corpse. The dig was reportedly facilitated by a local businessman who owns a nearby fuel station, enabling the looters to conduct the excavation without attracting public attention.
The Taliban’s so-called provincial officials have neither denied nor taken action against this cultural crime. In fact, Qari Noorzai, head of the Taliban’s Department of Industry and Commerce in Bamiyan, tacitly confirmed the operation during a closed-door session, where he admitted that the area around Haji Dawood’s fuel depot contains “a large concentration of historical artifacts” and has become a frequent target for unauthorized digging. He claimed to be documenting these activities for higher Taliban authorities an assertion that, in the absence of any meaningful intervention, appears more like a hollow public relations maneuver than a genuine effort to safeguard heritage.
What is unfolding in Bamiyan is not merely the work of a few rogue elements. It reflects a broader, institutionalized pattern of state-enabled cultural destruction. Individuals associated with Governor Sarhadi have previously been implicated in looting major archaeological sites such as Shahr-e Gholghola, Zohak Fortress, the peripheries of the demolished Buddhas, and the historic district of Panjab. These once-sacred spaces, emblematic of Afghanistan’s multicultural and civilizational richness, are now being desecrated for personal profit and political consolidation.
These are not isolated infractions. They represent a systemic policy of historical erasure. The Taliban, who parade themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and Islamic values, are in reality overseeing a deliberate assault on the very foundations of Afghanistan’s identity. They wield their authority not to protect heritage, but to commodify and destroy it. Mummies that have lain undisturbed beneath the soil for centuries are being torn from the earth by those who possess neither the reverence nor the intellectual capacity to understand their significance. What makes this crisis even more egregious is the deafening silence from Afghanistan’s so-called cultural institutions most of which have either been dismantled, politically co-opted, or rendered impotent under Taliban rule. The Ministry of Information and Culture, now little more than a propaganda arm of the regime, has made no public statement, no investigation, and no attempt to halt these illicit operations.
Meanwhile, the international community though well aware of the situation remains paralyzed. Global heritage organizations and diplomatic missions issue perfunctory condemnations, yet fail to implement any concrete measures to pressure the Taliban or protect Afghanistan’s endangered cultural sites. This combination of domestic suppression and international negligence is accelerating the destruction of a civilization’s soul. Bamiyan, once hailed as the confluence of Buddhist, Persian, Hellenistic, and Islamic civilizations, now stands on the edge of cultural extinction. Its majestic landscape once dotted with ancient monasteries, fortified cities, and colossal Buddhas is being ravaged not by natural decay, but by calculated human greed and ideological intolerance.
This is not merely a cultural tragedy. It is an existential threat to what remains of Afghanistan’s pluralistic memory. The Taliban regime, obsessed with consolidating its ethno-religious stranglehold, is rewriting the past to fit its narrow vision of the future. Every artifact stolen, every site destroyed, is a step toward erasing the diversity, sophistication, and humanity that once defined this land. The men responsible do not wear the face of enlightened rulers; they wear the mask of warlords masquerading as administrators. Under their rule, history is not something to be studied or celebrated it is something to be looted, buried, or burned.
And so, in the dead of night, under the shadow of mountains that have seen centuries unfold, another piece of Afghanistan’s soul is stolen not by invaders from afar, but by those who claim to lead in its name.
