Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: May 2012

Afghan Militia Wins Uneasy Peace

admin •

Wall Street Journal, 29 May 2012 A report about a local militia that successfully keeps the Taleban out of Qala-ye Zal district in Kunduz. The only problem: officially, these Critical Infrastructure Protection program (CIPP) militia, created last spring by the German military, ‘using American-provided funds’, should have been disbanded: President Karzai had told a reported […]

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Next to U.S. firing range in Afghanistan, a village of victims

admin •

Washington Post, 26 May 2012 A report about the problem of NATO troops’ ‘unfenced and poorly marked’ firing ranges and training grounds in Afghanistan, here near Bagram where hundreds of unexploded explosives litter the area and ‘farmers, scrap-metal collectors and sheep herders have been crippled, blinded and burned by U.S. military ammunition’. It is not […]

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Happy Christmas (2014), Will War Be Over?

Thomas Ruttig •

The spin from Chicago is working. Many media reported that the war in Afghanistan will be over and Western troops gone by 2014. Apparently, they did not get President Obama’s full message that was much more subtle: that the war ‘as we know it’ will be over. It will change its character and the new […]

War and Peace Read more

Kandahar schools brave harsh realities

admin •

al-Jazeera, 25 May 2012 Our recent guest blogger Mujib Mashal has an interesting article about Kandahar province’s dire state of education. Students numbers, both male and female, are well below national average, as are high school graduates.Three district ‘never’ had a school.

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The Other Guantanamo 2: the Afghan State begins Internment

Kate Clark •

Sources involved in the handover of Bagram detention facility from the United States to Afghanistan have told AAN that the Afghan state was due to start ruling on the internment of its own citizens there on 22 May 2012. The use of the US system of detention without trial by the Afghan government is probably […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Afghanistan: ‘I Was Not Born a Slave’

admin •

IWPR, 23 May 2012 A very gripping reportage about bonded child labour in the brick kilns of Nangrahar’s Sorkhrud district by Afghan journalist By Sayed Samiullah Sayidi, and a good follow up to the IRI report about the same issue some days ago in our ‘recommended reading’ list.

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The Mulla Dadullah Front: A search for clues

Thomas Ruttig •

A Mulla Dadullah Front has claimed responsibility for assassinating the High Peace Council member, Mawlawi Arsala Rahmani, on 13 May. Some in the media, as well as the Afghan authorities have picked up on the claim – and some alleged members of the Front have been arrested. Although this is not actually the first sighting […]

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Lost in transition: A political strategy for Afghanistan

admin •

Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, 22 May 2012 Scott Smith and Andrew Wilder discuss Afghan election scenarios, argue (very rightly so) that ‘the international community has inherited a partial responsibility for ensuring that the next elections play the role of consensus-building and state legitimation that would be the most likely way to save the country from […]

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No Country for Good Policemen?

Fabrizio Foschini •

At the NATO summit in Chicago, everybody’s attention seems to be focused on the budget for the defence of Afghanistan and how much donors will spend after 2014, in other words on the quantity of security forces that the country will be able to field. But what about their quality? A new, excellent report on […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Transition and Peace Talks: Optimism and Confidence in Herat?

Hamisha Bahar •

Transition of security and the possibility of a process of peace talks with the Taleban are a concern to most Afghans. According to reports, house prices are falling, investors are getting more careful and more and more people are contemplating to leave the country because of concerns that the situation may get worse. However, the […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Guest blog: The question of succession

Mujib Mashal •

Along with the withdrawal of foreign troops, a crucial political transition is on the cards for Afghanistan in 2014. Hamid Karzai nears the end of his second term, the only two he is constitutionally allowed to serve. While rumours of Karzai playing with the constitution to allow himself a third term were rife months ago, […]

Political Landscape Read more

Guest Blog: Inequality in Equality: Linguistic Convergence between Dari and Pashto

Lutz Rzehak •

Language matters. The issue of how to ‘correctly’ name institutions is just one linguistic issue which has become highly politicised in post-Taleban Afghanistan. AAN guest blogger Lutz Rzehak(*) looks at these issues from the point of view of a linguist who speaks three of Afghanistan’s languages and has carried out research there for several decades. […]

Context and Culture Read more

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