Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: October 2012

Anti-Taliban leader who rejects ‘corrupt’ Afghan police prefers to go it alone

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AFP, 13 October 2012 The French news agency reports another anti-Taleban ‘uprising’, this time from Logar’s Kolangar district and financed by a local businessman who has rejected to join the ALP. He claims he has already poured USD 160,000 into the uprising and has ‘the support of 50 villages and 200 armed men, with 2,000 […]

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The ICG Report and the Government’s Search for a New Narrative

Martine van Bijlert •

A report by the International Crisis Group on Afghanistan’s upcoming transition has triggered a hostile response from the Afghan government. The ICG report is described as an attempt to weaken Afghanistan’s resolve in the face of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership negotiations and as a means to pave the way for foreign interference in the upcoming […]

International Engagement Read more

How Petraeus’s Afghan

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IPS, 10 October 2012 Gareth Porter with a new piece: on how the Taleban’s IED war affected the US troops surge and made it fail finally. With some gruesome statistics about killed and maimed soldiers.

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U.S. Winds Down Afghanistan Aid Program

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Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2012 The closure of already five of over two dozen NATO PRTs ‘is effectively turning off the money flow to Afghanistan’s provinces’, the Journal reports. Of the once millions-strong Commander’s Emergency Response Program funds for PRT commanders (the Nangarhar PRT spent $24 million on projects in the province in 2010) […]

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Afghans in Kyrgyzstan: Fleeing Home and Facing New Uncertainty

S Reza Kazemi •

Migrants, refugees, students and business people – these are the major groups of Afghans living in nearby Kyrgyzstan. Of late, new asylum-seekers have been joining them, fleeing Afghanistan’s uncertain future with the coming withdrawal of NATO troops and using the country as a transit stop on their routes to North America, Western Europe or Russia. […]

Migration Read more

For a Handful of Bolani: Kunduz’s New Problem with Illegal Militias

Gran Hewad •

One month ago, at around the same time that Taleban attacked what was termed a ‘dancing party’ and killed its participants in the far north of Helmand province, a ‘freelance’ militia group invaded the village of Loy Kanam in Kunduz province and killed 12 people, including a number of innocent civilians. While the Helmand incident […]

War and Peace Read more

Afghanistan: outgoing ICRC head warns of humanitarian crisis

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ICRC, 8 October 2012 Reto Stocker’s worrying conclusions: ‘I am filled with concern as I leave this country. Since I arrived here in 2005, local armed groups have proliferated, civilians have been caught between not just one but multiple front lines, and it has become increasingly difficult for ordinary Afghans to obtain health care. People […]

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The start of the US campaign 11 years on: impressions then and now

Borhan Osman •

The military intervention in Afghanistan that started on 7 October 2001 with bomb attacks on Kabul and other Taleban strongholds by a US-led coalition, put Afghanistan on a new path. The Taleban was removed by force and a new government was installed with broadly defined democratic institutions. Regime changes in Afghanistan since the 1970s have […]

War and Peace Read more

Eyes on the Election: Two Afghan parties elect leaders

Gran Hewad •

Two of Afghanistan’s most important political parties – Afghan Millat (Afghan Nation) and Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan – held leadership elections during the first days of October, Millat chose a new leader, Hezb, the incumbent. Although both parties belong to the unofficial government coalition in Kabul, they have recently joined a coalition advocating clean and timely […]

Political Landscape Read more

Education in times of waseta: the example of Badakhshan

Fabrizio Foschini •

It is common wisdom that teachers are among the most important sections of Afghan society, as far as reconstructing the country goes. Also, almost everybody agrees that they are among the most underpaid and unempowered classes in Afghanistan. On the occasion of World Teachers’ Day, celebrated today in Afghanistan, AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini, who has just […]

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Doubt Cast on Afghan Mining

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Wall Street Journal, 3 October 2012 According to this report, ‘researchers working for the U.S. military have concluded [in a draft report] that it could cost more than $54 billion to build and run a railway network across Afghanistan, a price [that] could make some large-scale mining economically unviable’. ‘Because of the daunting terrain between […]

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Kanda and Backyard Pools: Faryabi Ways of Coping with Water Shortages

Obaid Ali •

Only 27 per cent of Afghanistan’s population has access to safe water sources, according to the government in Kabul. Faryab, a province in the country’s north, is an example of where access to potable water causes major problems for the inhabitants. Storing water for dry periods has always been a challenge there. Now problems have […]

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