"We are against tourism. They foster debauchery."

And soon the ancient buildings will be gone, razed by fanatics who imagine themselves saving the local people from the sin of worshipping idols.

In Timbuktu.

They destroyed the wooden door of the old mosque:

“I asked them why they were doing it... They said, ‘People believe that if that door is opened, the world will end’ ”— an un-Islamic superstition, the men explained, that had to be disproved....