Kabul, Feb.20, 2002: The condition of Kabul Public Library is heartbreaking. Once the richest library in the country but after the fall of puppet regiem in Apr.28, 1992, tens of thousands of books were first burnt by fundamentalists groups of the Northern Alliance and later Taliban destroyed all "un-Islamic" books. Taliban removed all books that contain pictures and during their rule no woman was allowed to enter the library. A part of the library was hit by a rocket due to which many books were destroyed and a worker was also killed. The employees of the library have terrible stories of what NA and Taliban did to the Public Library in the past one decade.



Deputy director of the library in an interview with RAWA reporter: "We had over 240,000 title books in the library but after 1992 jehadi groups burnt over 100,000 books because they termed them communistic. We don't have any new book since past 10 years."




A book destroyed in the library out of tens of thousands of such books.



Jehadi groups burn books in Kabul University in 1993


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