Taliban blow up ‘statue of old enemy’ days after returning to power

Reports add to concern over how militants will rule

Taliban militants are said to have blown up the statue of a Shiite leader who fought against the group during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s.

The news comes less than 24 hours after Taliban leaders sought to assure the world the group has changed.

At a Kabul press conference Zabihullah Mujahid, the militants’ spokesperson said it would not seek revenge on its enemies and opponents.

But images shared online add to growing concerns about how the group will rule, having taken effective control of Afghanistan on Sunday.

Pictures apparently show fighters destroying the structure, which depicted a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the Islamic militants seized power from rival warlords.

Abdul Ali Mazari, whose statue was blown up, was a champion of Afghanistan's ethnic Hazara minority - Shiites who were persecuted under the Sunni Taliban's earlier rule.

The statue stood in the central Bamyan province, where the Taliban infamously blew up two massive 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in 2001.

The group claimed the Buddhas violated Islam's prohibition on idolatry.

Following the civil war, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001, when western troops invaded the country in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.

They regained control on Sunday, less than a month before all US troops are expected to have been removed from Afghanistan.

Despite the Tablian's claims that it has reformed, thousands of Afghans remain unconvinced and are attempting to flee the country seemingly in fear for their lives.

At least seven people have died in the scramble to get out, some of whom perished after falling from a US military plane they had desperately clung onto in a bid to leave.