ULTERIOR MOTIVE

Taliban Will Not Destroy Buddhas This Time to Please China

They won’t let girls go to school and they destroyed hundreds of historical artifacts, but the Taliban will now preserve a collection of Buddhas in exchange for Chinese investment.

After a disappointing week in which the Taliban banned girls from attending school and women from flying without a male escort, the Afghanistan rulers agreed to preserve ancient Buddha statues in Mes Aynak that sit on top of a massive copper deposit—as a favor to China. The Taliban famously blew up massive Buddha statues—which they called pagan symbols—more than 20 years ago. The cash-strapped nation is thought to have more than $1 trillion in minerals buried beneath the surface which have not been unearthed due to constant fighting across the country, while Beijing has been courting the terrorists with promises to develop copper mines.