Spent artillery shells, lined up like sentries, stood guard at the base of the mountain alcove where the taller of the two statues had soared 170 feet high. All that remained was an outline of the carvings hewn from the sandstone mountains of central Bamiyan in the 3rd and 5th centuries.

A narrow dusty stairwell wound its way up the side of the smaller 120-foot statue of Buddha. Carved from within the sandstone mountain, the stairwell led to rooms decorated with niches where other statues once stood—but were no more.

The Taliban government flew about 20 foreign journalists aboard an old propeller aircraft from Kabul to Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan, where the statues had been carved into the sandstone mountain about 495 feet apart.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, chief of the Foreign Ministry's press department, said the statues' destruction was not intended to offend any religious groups. "This decision was not against anyone. It was a domestic matter of Afghanistan," Mr. Faiz said. He criticised the world community for expressing outrage over the statues while showing indifference to "suffering people." Four trucks of Taliban soldiers took reporters—the first foreigners known to have visited the area recently.

Also lost were ancient frescoes in the niches above the taller Buddha. Abdul Haidi, the Taliban commander who oversaw the operation, told reporters: "First, we destroyed the small statue. It was a woman. Then we blew up her husband, the big statue."

Abdul Raouf, a Taliban soldier who participated in the destruction, said: "Step by step, we blew them up…The big one took us four days."

The larger of the two statues was believed to have been the world's tallest standing Buddha. Residents of Bamiyan, who considered the mountain monuments to be neighbours, called the lofty sandstone Buddha "Solsol," meaning "year after year."

Many Afghans, as well as UN officials, believe the decision to ruin the statues is a sign of the growing influence of hardliners within the Taliban.