Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Editors Choice

  1. The Daily Hustle: How Afghan women working for NGOs are coping with the Taleban ban Roxanna Shapour • • Rights and Freedoms • 26 Jan 2023
  2. The Daily Hustle: The day labourer and his wife who took in a widow and her six children Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour • • Economy, Development, Environment • 10 Nov 2024
  3. What Affordable Means in Today’s Afghanistan: Choosing what to give up and what to hold on to Jawed Neshat • Roxanna Shapour • • Economy, Development, Environment • 31 May 2026
  4. After the Schools Closed: For some Afghan girls, learning happens on the airwaves Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour • • Rights and Freedoms • 28 Jun 2026

Spotlight

Themed Reports

  • Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team • 20 Jul 2026

    Inside Afghanistan’s Unequal Economic Recovery: How households have fared since 2021

    Since the crash following the collapse of the Republic in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy has witnessed a modest recovery, although many households have not. In a new longitudinal study, AAN has followed a number of families across Afghanistan and over time, to better understand how the country’s economic trajectory has played out for individual households. When we first […]

  • Sharif Akram • 9 Jul 2026

    Preaching Without a Party: Independent religious figures find space under the Islamic Emirate

    Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the space for organised religious activism in Afghanistan has narrowed sharply. Islamic parties have been suppressed or gone quiet. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), itself an Islamist movement, has worked steadily to bring religious discourse under state control. And yet, an unusual category of religious […]

  • Sharif Akram • 22 Mar 2026

    Bridging the Divide? Radio learning and girls’ education in rural Afghanistan

    When classrooms fell silent for older Afghan girls in 2021, millions were cut off from formal schooling, deepening long-standing inequalities between girls and boys. Yet learning did not stop – it adapted. Across the country, alternative avenues have emerged to try to help fill the gap. Among them, radio-based education has taken on particular significance, […]

  • Mhd Assem Mayar • 10 Feb 2026

    Pollution in Afghanistan: Air, water, waste and noise under weak governance

    Kabul’s winters bring a suffocating haze, as residents burn coal, wood and even plastic to heat their homes and use outdated vehicles, releasing toxic fumes into the city’s dry air. However,  perhaps surprisingly, the worst air quality in Afghanistan is found not in the capital, but in the southwest and north, where dust storms, made worse […]

  • Antonio Giustozzi • 18 Jan 2026

    From Insurgency to Government: How the Islamic Emirate polices Afghanistan

    Much has been written about Afghanistan’s police force during the Islamic Republic, but so far almost nothing about policing under the Islamic Emirate. In August 2021, when the Taliban took over the Ministry of Interior and more than 500 police stations spread across the country, the Emirate’s ability to police the country became a key test […]

  • Kate Clark • AAN Team • 21 Dec 2025

    Law, Control, Fear – and some Defiance: Citizens and enforcers talk about the ‘promotion of virtue and prevention of vice’

    It has been more than a year since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan introduced a new vice and virtue law. This law lays out what behaviour and actions the Islamic Emirate deems obligatory or forbidden for Afghan men and women. It gives its enforcers wide-ranging powers to both police and punish ‘wrongdoers,’ who have no […]

  • Rachel Reid • 2 Dec 2025

    Who Dares, Kills? Alleged war crimes and cover-ups by Britain’s special forces

    British special forces are being investigated for war crimes allegedly committed between 2010 and 2013 in Afghanistan. A public inquiry is looking into the deaths of Afghans who were killed in suspicious circumstances, mostly involving detention operations that showed hallmarks of summary executions. The killings came to light because of whistle-blowers inside the military, combined […]

The Daily Hustle

  • Roxanna Shapour • 16 Aug 2026

    When You Can’t Afford to Be Sick: From hakims and shrines to the operating table

    What happens when the medical treatment you need costs more money than you have? For many Afghans, illness comes with an impossible calculation. Paying for healthcare places a heavy burden on households, with patients and their families usually forced to cover costs out of their own pockets. For those faced with medical bills they cannot […]

  • Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour • 28 Jun 2026

    After the Schools Closed: For some Afghan girls, learning happens on the airwaves

    One of the first things the Taliban did after returning to power in August 2021 was to ban girls from going to school beyond grade six. Nearly five years later, the ban remains in place. For many, the classroom they had sat in only days before was suddenly out of reach. In this instalment of The […]

  • Jawed Neshat • Roxanna Shapour • 31 May 2026

    What Affordable Means in Today’s Afghanistan: Choosing what to give up and what to hold on to

    What happens when a family that once enjoyed a comfortable life can no longer afford the things it once took for granted? This is the situation for many Afghan households still struggling in the wake of the economic collapse of 2021 and 2022 when many lost their jobs and yet prices continue to rise and […]

  • Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour • 24 Apr 2026

    A Marriage I Didn’t Choose: An Afghan girl’s journey into despair and back 

    After the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan returned to power in August 2021, women and girls were barred from continuing their education beyond grade six. Women were also banned from working in most government jobs and NGOs, leaving many without employment or a way to support themselves. The opportunities that had seemed within reach during the […]

  • Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour • 19 Feb 2026

    Forty-Five Days to Spain: One man’s journey from Afghanistan in search of a future

    War has shaped the lives of several generations of Afghans, with many pushed to travel beyond the country’s borders, seeking sanctuary or opportunity in more peaceful places. That includes the hundreds of thousands who have embarked on the dangerous journey to Europe. In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from one man who […]

  • Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour • 27 Jan 2026

    When a Girl Turns Up at the Door: How an Afghan custom helped one young woman refuse a forced marriage

    For women – and often not for men either – marriage is rarely a personal choice. It is usually decided by families, most often by fathers. In Panjshir province, some young women try to escape unwanted marriages by taking refuge in the home of a man they do wish to marry – a practice known as shingari. A […]

  • Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour • 23 Nov 2025

    Claimed by Gunfire: How a single shot stole an Afghan girl’s future

    In parts of southeastern Afghanistan, a boy seeking to force a girl into marriage may fire gunshots outside her home to claim her publicly as his future wife, often after the girl’s family has refused his proposal. The shots are a signal that the girl now belongs to him – regardless of her wishes or […]

Reports

  • Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour • 5 Aug 2026

    A Son of Jaghori: Remembering Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, 1930-2026

    For centuries, a steady stream of Afghan students have gone to the great Shia Islamic seminaries of Iran and Iraq in search of religious learning. Few rose as high as Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, who died in June 2026 at the age of 96. AAN’s Rohullah Suroush and Roxanna Shapour trace Fayyaz’s journey from a village […]

  • Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini • 26 Jul 2026

    A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

    In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

  • Nur Khan Himmat • Jelena Bjelica • 24 Jun 2026

    Returning to Uncertainty: How Afghan returnees from Pakistan are struggling to rebuild their lives

    Some six million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, almost half of them in 2025, making it one of the largest return movements of any nationality in recent decades. 2.26 million people returned from Pakistan, one million in 2025 alone, amid an intensifying deportation campaign launched in September 2023 […]

  • Rama Mirzada • 17 Jun 2026

    Afghan Students in Pakistan: Lost dreams or a life in the shadows?  

    Afghans studying in Pakistan had hoped they might avoid the collective expulsions that, since 2023, have upended life for over two million Afghans living there. However, as the scope of deportations has widened, students have found themselves unable to get study visas. Some have already been detained by Pakistani police and deported. Others have managed, […]

  • Sharif Akram • 7 Jun 2026

    The Decline of Ashar: How collective labour is fading in rural Afghanistan

    For generations, the tradition of ashar – voluntary, unpaid communal labour – was one of the strongest expressions of solidarity in rural Afghan society. Whether harvesting a neighbour’s wheat, building a home or cleaning an irrigation canal, ashar bound together families, villages and tribes through reciprocal obligation. This tradition has sharply declined across much of southeastern Afghanistan […]

  • Mhd Assem Mayar • 24 May 2026

    Can Afghanistan Feed Itself? Agriculture, trade and food security under pressure

    Afghanistan’s food system is under growing strain. Domestic harvests remain insufficient and uneven and trade routes have shifted repeatedly in recent years. This spring’s rainfall has been good enough for a forecast of a bumper wheat crop, but that belies the ruinous longer-term reality of the climate crisis and the more frequent droughts it is […]

  • Kate Clark • Fabrizio Foschini • 17 May 2026

    Holding the Line in Afghanistan: Women’s health in crisis and one NGO’s response 

    AAN has considered women’s health in Afghanistan from several angles in recent years, with bleak conclusions. We found provision for women living in rural areas under particular threat, with clinics closing, shortages of female health professionals and economic pressure making it difficult for families to afford transport to a clinic. In 2024, the Islamic Emirate […]

Podcasts

Afghan Women Spoke: A People’s Tribunal listened

Rachel Reid •

Afghan women may have been silenced in their own country, but in December 2025, they were given a very public platform to tell the world about life under the Taliban – The People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan. The tribunal took place in Europe, but Afghans were able to watch the hearings via satellite […]

Podcasts Read more

The Conversation: From the morality police to suspected UK war crimes

Kate Clark • Rachel Reid • Roxanna Shapour •

AAN authors discuss three in depth reports: Kate Clark on what has changed in the year since the introduction of the ‘Vice and Virtue’ law in Afghanistan, Roxanna Shapour discusses a survey on men’s views about the restrictions on women and finally, Rachel Reid gives a glimpse into her forthcoming report on alleged war crimes […]

Podcasts Read more

Publications

Dossiers Special Reports Other Publications

A Son of Jaghori: Remembering Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, 1930-2026

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

For centuries, a steady stream of Afghan students have gone to the great Shia Islamic seminaries of Iran and Iraq in search of religious learning. Few rose as high as Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, who died in June 2026 at the age of 96. AAN’s Rohullah Suroush and Roxanna Shapour trace Fayyaz’s journey from a village […]

Reports Read more

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

Reports Read more
Head of customs for the Hairatan border crossing in Balkh province, Abdul Sattar Rashid (second left), with other Taleban on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge.
The Taleban moved swiftly to organise and regularise the collection of customs and taxes as they took power in 2021. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 27 October 2021

New AAN Special Report: “Taxing the Afghan Nation: What the Taleban’s pursuit of domestic revenues means for citizens, the economy and the state”

Kate Clark •

As insurgents, the Taleban taxed farmers, businesses and NGOs in areas under their control, using the money to fund their war effort. On taking power in August 2021, they swiftly moved to collect taxes in the whole of the country. That serious-minded pursuit of domestic revenue collection is both a practice carried over from the […]

Special Reports Read more

New special report: ‘Between Hope and Fear. Rural Afghan women talk about peace and war’

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As the United States pushes ahead with the rapid and unconditional withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, an unrelenting Taleban offensive has driven the Afghan government out of scores of districts across the country. Many Afghans are seeing their fears about the fallout from the ill-considered US-driven peace process come true. Against this backdrop, AAN’s […]

Special Reports Read more

Water, Climate and Survival in Afghanistan: A dossier of reports on the environment 

AAN Team •

The pressures on Afghanistan’s environment are increasingly urgent as the climate crisis bites. Our last dossier of reports on this subject was published in November 2022 when Afghanistan – one of the lightest emitters of greenhouse gases and also one of the hardest hit by climate change – had no representation at the international COP27 gathering (because of the […]

Dossiers Read more

Deepening Discrimination: A dossier of reports about Afghan women

AAN Team •

We last published a dossier of reports about women in July 2021, just before that momentous event for Afghanistan, the collapse of the Islamic Republic and re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate. Those reports testified to how Afghan women’s efforts to overcome discrimination are nothing new. However, their struggles have only grown in magnitude as the […]

Dossiers Read more

Afghanistan, Five Years of Taliban Rule: An Assessment

Thomas Ruttig •

ISPI, 12 August 2025 AAN contributed two contributions to a dossier, “Afghanistan, Five Years of Taliban Rule: An Assessment” by free lance journalist and long-time Afghanistan watcher Giuliano Battiston and published by ISPI, the Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (Italian Institute for International Political Studies) in Rome. First, under the title “Back to […]

Other Publications Read more

What went wrong? Two AAN studies for Norway’s Afghanistan Commission

AAN Team •

In October 2024, Norway appointed a second Afghanistan Commission to evaluate the country’s efforts in Afghanistan, this time covering the period from 2015 to 2021. As part of its review, it examined Norway’s military contribution, development assistance and its efforts to support peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as the 2021 evacuation operation. As with […]

Other Publications Read more

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