Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: March 2011

Sherzai Staying or Leaving? A Nangrahar Tug-of-War

Fabrizio Foschini •

Gul Agha Sherzai may well be satisfied with the ‘gold medal’ he has been awarded on Sunday by a local labour organization for his services. It could represent the final achievement of his long-lasting tenure as governor of Nangrahar province. After almost six years, many local powerbrokers in Eastern Afghanistan, and maybe himself too, seem […]

Political Landscape Read more

When the police goes local; more on the Baghlan ALP

Gran Hewad •

AAN returns to the story of the local police (ALP) of Baghlan and particularly the group of Hezb-e Islami fighters who, supported by the US Special Forces, had reconciled and become local police in summer 2010, and were decimated in a Taleban attack in September. Some locals have accused this group of committing crimes. Others […]

Political Landscape Read more

Guest Blog: Why the Buddhas of Bamian were destroyed

Michael Semple •

It would have been possible to save the Bamian Buddhas from destruction. But it was not an important enough issue for the western powers to intervene over. And the outsiders who did consider the Buddhas important were not prepared to contemplate the kind of intervention that might have worked. The Buddhas were abandoned, argues our […]

Context and Culture Read more

Stories people tell (1): An attempted land grab, a fabricated case and an expensive release

Martine van Bijlert •

There is much talk about corruption. How it undermines the government and erodes trust. How it weakens all efforts towards reform. How it makes people’s lives more complicated and miserable than they already are. But it is only when you are confronted with the wearying detail of what people have to go through, just to […]

Political Landscape Read more

‘Zoom In and You’ll See the Faces of Taleban’

Martine van Bijlert •

Michael Yon travelled to Uruzgan to see what he could see. He is by his own description on “a long tour of Afghanistan” to discover what is going on in places where international forces have fought and died. Not a bad idea. These places are indeed “(n)ames that mean almost nothing to most people, but […]

War and Peace Read more

AAN In The Media – March 2011

AAN Team •

Western aid lines Taliban pockets in Afghanistan AFP, 31 March 2011 ‘Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan[istan] Analysts Network, a Kabul think tank, believes Western aid money is now one of the insurgents’ main sources of income. …The militarisation and privatisation of aid prevent the development of Afghan institutions. It is aimed at fighting the insurgency […]

AAN in the Media Read more

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