BAMYAN, Afghanistan — In this high, cold valley in central Afghanistan, the local population is still grappling with the legacy of the Taliban.

Over the past two years, insurgents loyal to the deposed Taliban government have thwarted numerous attempts by the local population to rebuild the area’s cultural resources after years of destruction at the hands of the Taliban.

“It’s really a shame,” said U.S. envoy Peter Cetera. “These people are just trying to be entertained, bring a little sunshine into their own lives.”

Early one morning last week — at approximately 3:34 or 3:35 a.m., according to Mr. Cetera — Taliban insurgents bombed a local auditorium that was scheduled to be the site of a Clay Aiken concert the next night. It was the lastest in a series of attacks that have closed venues just days in advance of performances by Western entertainers.

In February, a car bomb planted outside a Starbucks disrupted the planned sale of a new CD by country and western singer Carrie Underwood. And last December a scuffle broke out in a Kabul alley that was meant to house an impromptu performance by the rock group Daughtry.

When the Taliban was in power in this country, it banned all singing contests, citing prohibitions in Islam.

“They felt that elevating individual entertainers was equivalent to the creation of false idols,” said Muslim scholar Sanjaya Malakar. “Mullah Omar in particular was opposed to it on the grounds that it was ‘all just a big popularity contest.’”

But despite the former Taliban members being on the prowl in Bamyan and throughout Afganistan, defiant Afgans continue their love affair with U.S.-imported pop music.

“I’m hoping to hear him sing a Michael McDonald song,” one young Afghan man said while clutching a poster advertising a mid-April Taylor Hicks concert at the Kabul Bowl. “If that means I’ll be risking my life, so be it.”