Since the Taliban swept to power in August 2021, I had travelled to Afghanistan several times as an international correspondent for the BBC. The shambolic nature of their takeover and the little experience the one-time insurgents had in running a country meant I was able to freely travel to places that were once deemed the most dangerous on Earth.
I was now heading back to the country, following a two-week break in Sydney to visit my parents. I was slightly nervous about making this journey. A lot had changed since my last visit in June 2022. Women had been banned from universities, from public parks, from going to gyms; they could no longer travel long distances in the country or abroad without a male chaperone. The Taliban had also issued an edict stating that, unless it was absolutely necessary, they should refrain from leaving
