Hazara Nation

A United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan has backed up the New Zealand Defence Force's denial that kiwi soldiers accidentally damaged what was left of the Bamyan Buddha statues.

The famous structures were blown up by the Taliban seven years ago, but two small ones survived.

An Afghan government official says New Zealand troops blew up a historic wall and damaged a Buddha, during an ammunition disposal exercise last week.

However Brendan Cassar, the chief of UNESCO's cultural programme in Afghanistan, says a monitoring mechanism inside the niche where the statues once stood shows no change in pre-existing cracks.