Washington - Bamiyan statues, the tallest standing statues of Buddha, were blown up by the Taliban at the instance of Pakistani, Saudi and other fanatic followers of Osama Bin Laden, according to minutes of a meeting found in a house abandoned by the fleeing militia.

The Times of India reported that "the one-page document, discovered in a house in Kabul is labelled minute of a meeting and describes how Al-Qaeda fighters, as well as Uzbek, Chechen and Pakistani militants who were allied with them, had sent a delegation to the Taliban to "discuss the fate of the Buddha statues," a report said on Sunday.

The document suggests that the Islamic groups or foreigners met repeatedly and lobbied with the Taliban to take action, some of which was opposed by the Afghan leaders.

Said Amin Mujahed, a history professor at Kabul University who was involved in trying to persuade the Taliban to spare the statues, told the Washington Post: "I believed from the early days that this was not the Taliban doing. This was the Islamic radicals from Pakistan, the Arab Wahhabis. The Taliban were not the ones deciding - they were only the implementers. Other people were dictating to them, and they were just repeating the words. You can easily say the Taliban were just the spokespersons for Bin Laden".