[MSN] More than five years after the fall of the Taliban regime, the plundering of Afghanistan's archaeological sites and museums has evolved into a sophisticated trade that could be funding the country's warlords and insurgents.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Sinister twist seen in Afghan looting


By Raf Casert Associated Press Sun, Feb. 11, 2007 via The Philadelphia
Inquirer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - More than five years after the fall of the Taliban
regime, the plundering of Afghanistan's archaeological sites and museums has
evolved into a sophisticated trade that could be funding the country's
warlords and insurgents, experts say.

The International Council of Museums, a nonprofit organization in Paris
dedicated to the conservation of the world's natural and cultural heritage,
has published a "red list" of Afghan antiquities at risk, urging collectors,
dealers and museums to be vigilant when they come across objects that might
have been stolen.

The list includes pottery and statuettes from the third millennium B.C.,
golden reliquaries from the first century, and Islamic panels from the 13th
century.

"Ancient sites and monuments, ranging from the Old Stone Age to the 20th
century, are being attacked and systematically looted," the organization of
museums said in a statement.

Some of the artifacts have turned up in fancy auction houses and antiques
shops in London, Tokyo and New York, the group said.

"Afghanistan is now at serious risk from organized destruction and
plundering," said John Zvereff, secretary-general of the International
Council of Museums.

A crossroad of Asian culture for centuries, Afghanistan has always been a
treasure trove for archaeologists.

The world was shocked when the Taliban blew up two 1,600-year-old Buddha
statues along the ancient Silk Road in March 2001. The fundamentalist
Islamic movement deemed the statues, famed for their size and location,
idolatrous.

Later that year the Taliban, which had controlled most of Afghanistan since
1996, was ousted by the United States and its allies for hosting al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden.

However, remnants of the regime are fighting to regain power, and there is
concern that profits from the sale of looted art could be going to the
insurgents or the country's warlords.

"Some of the trade is used to finance armaments and militia," said Lucas
Verhaegen, a Belgian police investigator of illegal trafficking.

The fledgling government has said that with its police and army struggling
against resurgent Taliban fighters, warlords and opium barons, it has
insufficient resources to protect archaeological sites and museums.

"We see worsening vandalism," said Humayum Tandar, Afghan ambassador to
Belgium.

Verhaegen described a highly organized trade that uses complicated smuggling
routes to avoid detection - over the 3,500-foot Khyber Pass connecting
Afghanistan and Pakistan, on to Lebanon, and then via the airport in
Brussels or Amsterdam to Switzerland or the United States.

Much has been made of an exhibit at Paris' Guimet Museum, where 22,000
pieces of jewel-encrusted crowns, golden daggers and baubles from an ancient
burial mound are back on display after being hidden for years by Afghans at
great personal risk.

Still missing, however, are more than 55,000 art objects stolen from all
over the country since the 1980s, said Zemaryalai Tarzi, a prominent Afghan
archaeologist.

"Never has a country been looted so systematically as Afghanistan," he said.
"It was before the Taliban. It was during the Taliban. It was after. And it
continues," he said.