Afghan museum exhibits mementos of Taliban takeover

Alongside antique Qurans and ancient Afghan coins, rocket launchers and homemade bombs are displayed in a Mazar-e-Sharif museum as a testament to the Taliban's victory over foreign soldiers.

"It doesn't have any old history, but it all played an important role in the victory," says museum director Abdul Qayum Ansari. "This has exceptional meaning for the people."

Inside the one-room Balkh province museum in northern Mazar-e-Sharif city's famous Blue Mosque, twin display cases are devoted to mementoes from the Taliban's two-decade armed opposition ending in 2021.

Ansari says the AFP team visiting are the first journalists authorised to come "in more than two years".

Surrounded by fragments of pottery and porcelain, a yellow barrel of explosives stands out alongside a red Honda motorbike encased in a glass box, propping up a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The bike "was for transportation of the Mujahideen (fighters) during the war and combat", while the weapon "was used against the war machines like tanks", explains the curator.

'Our people must see it'

According to Ansari, the small portion of the museum given over to war objects "has the most visitors".

Taliban authorities "wanted this museum to be exceptional", he says. "Many more rooms" could be filled with other wartime curios of interest to the public, he insists.

Antiquities from previous eras are sparse, however. While Mazar-e-Sharif is a historic crossroads with Central Asia, much of its heritage was plundered in Afghanistan's cascading conflicts.

Since surging back to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has commemorated the withdrawal of US forces and the rout of the foreign-backed government with military parades and poetry readings.

It is unclear why authorities have been reluctant to show off the small exhibition, but Ansari said he thinks it deserves to be seen widely.

"All the world must see it, our people must see it," he said.