organisations and associations, which also include the protection of cultural property against disasters in times of peace, civil society structures will play an increasing role in the field of cultural property protection and support the work of state and international institutions. One example of international cooperation in the protection of cultural assets was the temporary storage of art treasures from the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan, in Switzerland. The art objects, which were severely threatened in the National Museum both by the Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) that lasted until 1995 and by the subsequent rule of the Taliban regime, were moved to a so-called "Afghanistan Museum in Exile" in the Swiss town of Bubendorf in 1999 with the consent of all parties to the conflict. The exhibition, which was supported primarily by the voluntary work of Swiss citizens and exiled Afghans, as well as by donations of around 1.5 million Swiss francs and supervised by the Swiss Afghanistan Institute based in Bubendorf, was open to the public from October 2000 to October 2006 and was visited by around 50,000 people during this time. In March 2007, the objects were returned to Kabul under the direction of UNESCO and with the support of the German Air Force. According to the spokesman of the Bubendorf Museum, this was the largest return of art objects since the end of the Second World War. In contrast, the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad was heavily plundered and damaged from 8 to 12 April 2003, some three weeks after the start of the Iraq War. The museum was reopened only three years earlier on 28 April 2000, nine years after its closure as a result of the Second Gulf War. Later investigations carried out by a US commission in collaboration with museum staff found evidence of at least three independent incidents. According to the Commission's findings, the looting was sometimes spontaneous and indiscriminate. However, a number of indications also pointed out that the thieves had a good knowledge of the museum and expert knowledge of the cultural assets on display. Although particularly valuable objects were kept in the cellar of the museum in the run-up to the war, considerable losses were also incurred here. The Commission corrected initial estimates of some 170,000 stolen works of art to 11,000–15,000 stolen objects. By the time the study results were published in 2005, about 5,000 of them had been