Aussie tourist recovers after being shot in Afghanistan
An Australian man gunned down in Afghanistan is recovering in a Kabul hospital after a deadly attack on foreign tourists that claimed the lives of six people.
An Australian man gunned down in Afghanistan is recovering in a Kabul hospital after a deadly attack on foreign tourists that claimed the lives of six people.
Joe McDowell was wounded in an attack in the country’s mountainous Bamyan Province by a gunman who killed three Spaniards and at least three Afghans.
It’s believed Mr McDowell was part of a tourist group there to see the remains of two giant Buddha statues blown up by the Taliban in 2001.
The group was attacked on Friday while shopping in a bazaar in Bamiyan city, about 180km from the capital, Kabul.
Jibra’il Omar, an Australian academic previously known as Timothy Weeks, posted a photo on social media of Mr McDowell in his hospital bed.
“Today I visited my Australian brother, Joe McDowell, who is well and is now in Kabul,” he wrote in Persian, adding that Mr McDowell thanked Afghanistan for its support.
Mr McDowell was in Afghanistan despite Australian government advice warning against all travel to Afghanistan “due to the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorism and kidnapping”.
An Australian government spokeswoman said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to an Australian in Afghanistan. Owing to our privacy obligations, we cannot provide further comment.”
The attack is believed to be the first deadly assault on foreign tourists in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
French tourist Anne-France Brill, one of a dozen foreign travellers on the organised tour, said a gunman on foot approached the group’s vehicles and opened fire.
“There was blood everywhere,” the 55-year-old Dubai resident said. “One thing is certain,” she said; the gunman “was there for the foreigners”.
Ms Brill said she helped collect the bloodied belongings of her wounded fellow travellers before a Taliban escort brought them to the capital, where they were taken in by an EU delegation.
Spain’s government on Friday announced that three of the dead were Spanish tourists.
“Overwhelmed by the news of the murder of Spanish tourists in Afghanistan,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on social media platform X.
The dead included three Afghans – two civilians and a Taliban member, Afghanistan’s interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said.
Those wounded included tourists from Spain, Lithuania and Norway, and an Afghan national.
Local officials said the slain Afghan civilians were working with the tour group, while the Taliban security official had returned fire when the shooting broke out.
Interior Ministry spokesman Qani said seven suspects had been arrested, “of which one is wounded”.
He said the Taliban government “strongly condemns this crime, expresses its deep feelings to the families of the victims and assures that all the criminals will be found and punished”.
There has not yet been a claim of responsibility, but a number of armed groups remain active in the country, including Islamic State.
The jihadist group has waged a campaign of attacks on foreign interests in a bid to weaken the Taliban, targeting the Pakistani and Russian embassies as well as Chinese businessmen.
The country’s Taliban government has yet to be officially recognised by any foreign nation, and Australia has no diplomatic presence in the country.
The UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said it was “deeply shocked and appalled by the deadly terrorist attack” in Bamiyan, adding it had provided assistance after the incident.
Additional reporting: NCA Newswire, AFP
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