The Norwegian writer on meeting the Taliban, her fears for girls’ education, and the legal battle that ensued after the publication of her bestselling book

The author Åsne Seierstad’s cool, shaded garden, within walking distance from the centre of Oslo, seems a very long way from Afghanistan and the Taliban. But sitting there, drinking tea, she brings a vivid sense of that other dustier, more chaotic world alive.

That relationship began for Seierstad two weeks after 9/11, when, as a freelance foreign correspondent, she embedded herself with the Northern Alliance of forces that, with western support, would sweep the Islamic fundamentalist regime from power. Twenty years later, she has been among the few journalists to go back after the desperate airlift that ended US and British support for democratic government and to spend time bearing witness to the Taliban’s chilling return to power.

Joe McDowell, 38, from Perth, was visiting Bamiyan when he was shot by a gunman who killed three Spaniards and three Afghans

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An Australian adventure tourist targeted in a deadly shooting in central Afghanistan thought he would die after coming face to face with an Islamic State gunman.

Joe McDowell, 38, was shot when the lone gunman opened fire on his tour group in Bamiyan, about 200km west of the capital, Kabul, last Friday, killing six people.

Taliban says four arrested over attack at Bamiyan heritage site that killed three Spanish visitors and an Afghan

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack by gunmen in Afghanistan’s central Bamiyan province that killed three Spanish tourists on Friday.

The Taliban’s interior ministry spokesperson, Abdul Mateen Qani, said on Sunday that four people had been arrested over the attack. One Afghan citizen was also killed and four foreigners and three Afghans were injured in the attack, he added.

Thousands of homes and farming land damaged in Ghor province, a week after over 300 people killed in flash floods

At least 60 people have been killed in a fresh bout of heavy rain and flooding in central Afghanistan, according to an official.

Dozens others remained missing, said Abdul Wahid Hamas, spokesperson for Ghor’s provincial governor, on Saturday. He said the province had suffered significant financial losses, with thousands of homes and properties damaged and hundreds of hectares of agricultural land destroyed in the floods on Friday, including in the province’s capital city, Feroz Koh.

Four suspects arrested at the scene of attack in Bamiyan, with four more foreigners and three Afghans reported wounded

Three Spanish tourists and an Afghan civilian have been killed in a shooting attack in Bamiyan province, central Afghanistan.

The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, wrote on social messaging platform X that he was “shocked by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan”.