- PHOTO TAKEN 21SEP05 - A picture shows the valley of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, with the part of the Himalaya mountain range in the background, September 21, 2005. In 1999, [the Islamic fundamentalist movement that was then in control of most of Afghanistan, declared the statues and grottoes idolatrous and un-Islamic, and in March 2001 they used artillery and explosives to demolish the Great Buddha and another large statue]. Picture taken on September 21, 2005.