Daily Sabah (Turkey)

Afghan museum features items from Taliban’s ongoing reign

- MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHANISTA­N / AFP

antique Qurans and ancient Afghan coins, rocket launchers and homemade bombs are displayed in a Mazar-i-Sharif museum as a testament to the Taliban’s victory over foreign soldiers.

“It doesn’t have any old history, but it all played an important role in the victory,” says museum director Abdul Qayum Ansari. “This has exceptiona­l meaning for the people.”

Inside the one-room Balkh province museum in northern Mazar-i-Sharif city’s famous Blue Mosque, twin display cases are devoted to mementos from the Taliban’s two-decade insurgency ending in 2021.

Ansari insists it’s “forbidden to photograph or film” the displays and says the Agence FrancePres­se (AFP) team visiting are the first journalist­s authorized to come “in more than two years.”

Surrounded by fragments of pottery and porcelain, a yellow barrel of explosives stands out alongside a red Honda motorbike encased in a glass box, propping up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The bearded curator explains that the bike “was for transporta­tion of the Mujahideen during the war and combat,” while the weapon “was used against war machines like tanks.”

A handful of Afghan men browse the relics. Afghan women are barred from visiting, having been banned by authoritie­s from entering the Blue Mosque complex after the Taliban returned to power. According to Ansari, the small portion of the museum dedicated to war objects “has the most visitors.”

Taliban authoritie­s “wanted this museum to be exceptiona­l,” he says. He insists that “Many more rooms” could be filled with other wartime curios of interest to the public.

Antiquitie­s from previous eras are sparse, however. While Mazar-i-Sharif sits at a historic crossroads with Central Asia, much of its heritage was plundered in Afghanista­n’s cascading conflicts.

Since surging back to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has commemorat­ed the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the rout of the foreign-backed government with military parades and poetry readings.

At the same time, they have been hungry for foreign diplomatic ties and official recognitio­n by other states.

It is unclear why authoritie­s have been reluctant to show off the small exhibition, but Ansari said he thinks it deserves to be seen widely.

“From my personal point of view, pictures should be taken of it,” says Ansari. “All the world must see it; our people must see it.”

“I have personally requested that we must have a special museum for the conquest and the victory,” he says.

 ?? ?? A Taliban security personnel (L) and a visitor look at the antiques in a museum inside the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, or Blue Mosque, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanista­n, March 4, 2024.
A Taliban security personnel (L) and a visitor look at the antiques in a museum inside the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, or Blue Mosque, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanista­n, March 4, 2024.

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