Finest Hotel in Kabul

Lyse Doucet first arrived at the Kabul Inter-Continental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, the day after her thirtieth birthday, to cover the withdrawal of Soviet troops. But she was immediately taken by the faded grandeur of the hotel and the warmth of its staff. Over the next four decades, Lyse would become one of the world’s best-respected war correspondents, reporting on moments from the Arab Spring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as Chief International Correspondent for the BBC. Yet, she is always drawn back to her Afghan home, the hotel most people just call the ‘Inter-Con’. Here, by drawing upon years of conversations with its staff and guests, she tells the story that only she can.