For fear of the Taliban’s harsh response, we did not publish the images at that time. We also tried to seek protection from the Foreign Ministry, which had granted us the work permit in the first place. The next morning, a foreigner came asking for me at our bureau. He said he was working for an international news agency in Islamabad and wanted to feed his own footage via satellite, which was only available in our bureau. I told him we were not authorised to transmit for other agencies. “Approval must be obtained from our management first,” I explained. He said he had a booking request sent to Doha and asked me to verify it. I refused.
Then I thought to myself: “Global news agency staff coming from Islamabad to Kabul in a hurry to transmit some footage, it must be urgent. It must be related to the Buddhas.” I immediately decided to publish our own footage, which no one knew about. After consulting with the bureau staff, we decided to transmit our tape and deal with the consequences. In a last-ditch attempt, I reached out again to the Foreign Minister, who gave me the green light and promised to contain any unfavourable response from the Taliban. A few hours later, the exclusive images appeared on Al Jazeera. It caused shockwaves across the globe. It was a double scoop: images of the monuments in good condition and pictures of the aftermath. As to our own reaction to the destruction of the statues, it is a totally different story.
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