MOHAMMED YAQOB SHOWS THE WRITINGS ON THE WALLS OF A SHIA MOSQUE IN MAZAR, 2002-02-11 (photo)

Mohammed Yaqob, a local Hazara leader, shows the writings on the walls of a Shia mosque destroyed by the Taliban in Qezelabad village in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan February 11, 2002. During those days, Taliban clerics were announcing from the mosques that Shia Muslims had three choices - convert to Sunni Islam, leave for Shia Iran or die. As they rampaged through the main mosque, the Taliban soldiers scrawled their names on the walls - like the inscription which reads "The memory of Hafez Abdul Ali" (one of the Taliban fighters who ransacked the mosque). REUTERS/Claro Cortes IV CC/CP