[underlying]

The plight of Jews in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan
January 2005 (1998-2005)
both remaining Jews survived the Taliban's five-year reign is something of a miracle...the Taliban had ransacked the synagogue for almost all items of value it still contained, including a silver pointer and four tiny silver bells. A few months later, a Taliban commander confiscated its last, most precious treasure: a handwritten Torah scroll that Simintov estimates was about 400 years old.

[underlying]

One of Kabul's last remaining Jews dies
Afghanistan, Iran
January 2005
Both men said they had been jailed and beaten by the Taliban....Afghanistan's Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion in neighboring Iran.