{"id":59150,"date":"2023-10-12T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T04:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/oct\/12\/inside-the-taliban-luxury-hotel-afghanistan-intercontinental-kabul"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:00:59","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T04:00:59","slug":"inside-the-talibans-luxury-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=59150","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Taliban\u2019s luxury hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Once the site of legendary parties, the Intercontinental in Kabul is still a potent symbol of who rules Afghanistan \u2013 and what its future might hold<\/p>\n<p>At the first barrier, a Talib smiles; he has orders to smile. At the second barrier, a sign: Weapons Handover Point. Those who deposit their Kalashnikovs here will receive a locker number and get their weapon back upon leaving the hotel. The road winds up the hill between circular trimmed hedges. At the third barrier: a body search. Then, behind a metal gate, the driveway to the hotel finally appears. Car tires squeal on the marble slabs in front of the entrance.<\/p>\n<p>The Intercontinental Hotel towers over the Afghan capital like a castle. Kabul, this war-ravaged city. The noise of its car horns can no longer be heard up here.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/oct\/12\/inside-the-taliban-luxury-hotel-afghanistan-intercontinental-kabul\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once the site of legendary parties, the Intercontinental in Kabul is still a potent symbol of who rules Afghanistan \u2013 and what its future might holdAt the first barrier, a Talib smiles; he has orders to smile. At the second barrier, a sign: Weapons Han&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,1475,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-hotels","category-taliban"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59151,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150\/revisions\/59151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}