Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: June 2013

Fury from Hamid Karzai plunges US talks with Taliban into disarray

AAN Team •

Telegraph, 19 June 2013 Talks between the US and Taliban were in disarray last night before they could begin, writes the British daily, as Washington scrambled to placate fury from Hamid Karzai that the insurgents had been handed a propaganda coup. AAN’s Martine van Bijlert explains: the Afghan government had been wrong-footed by a Taliban […]

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Afghan forces take over as peace talks loom, doubts remain

AAN Team •

McClatchy, 18 June 2013 With the Afghan security forces now officially in charge of protecting their country, the article takes stock of how the conflict is increasingly weighing on these forces. AAN’s Kate Clark comments about the strategy of the insurgents at this critical juncture and the ability of the Afghan forces to fight them […]

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Getting Ready for Change. Or: What to make of Fahim’s speech

Martine van Bijlert •

On 11 June 2013 First Vice President Marshal Qasim Fahim gave a rare public speech, that has been reverberating in the media ever since. The speech was an impassioned and long-winded call for national consensus, but while he was at it Fahim managed to deliver a few thinly veiled threats, touch on a couple of […]

Political Landscape Read more

AIHRC Commissioners Finally Announced

Martine van Bijlert • Sari Kouvo •

Finally, the new commissioners for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) have been announced. The announcement comes 19 months after President Hamed Karzai unilaterally removed three Commissioners in December 2011, with another killed in a Taleban attack and a fifth dismissed. The movement after such a long time on these long overdue appointments has […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Emergency Aid for Afghan Bomb Victims “Stolen”

admin •

IWPR, 13 June 2013 IWPR reporters track down the lot of a 100,000$ worth of medical help meant for the clinic of remote (and contested) Azra district of Logar immediately after it had been hit hard by a truck bomb in July 2011 (AAN then wrote about the ruthless attack). The materials apparently never made […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Transition in Uruzgan (2): Power at the centre

Deedee Derksen •

“Only the dead see the end of war”. The encryption on the monument for fallen foreign soldiers in Camp Holland, the main international military base in Uruzgan, might end up a sad prediction for many inhabitants of this southern province. As foreign forces prepare to leave, Uruzganis are ever more worried about the future. Deedee […]

War and Peace Read more

Transition in Uruzgan (1): The fights that don’t get mentioned

Martine van Bijlert •

The daily news in Afghanistan is dotted with reports of small-scale attacks, mostly on police posts, district centres and government convoys. These reports illustrate what is going on, but do not provide a full picture: a large proportion of attacks and incidents go unreported. Although the strategic importance of the individual scuffles tends to be […]

War and Peace Read more
Girls actually in the classroom. Getting Afghan children, especially girls, to school, has been considered a major success story for post-Taleban Afghanistan, but how many children appearing in the statistics are ‘ghosts'? (Photo: Christine-Felice Roehrs)

The Ongoing Battle for Education. Uprisings, Negotiations and Taleban Tactics

Antonio Giustozzi • Claudio Franco •

In a follow-up to a December 2011 report, AAN revisits the ongoing negotiations between the Afghan Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Taleban. The earlier report, ‘The Battle for Schools: The Taleban and State Education’, focused on the changing Taleban attitudes towards Afghanistan’s state schools, allowing for the opening of schools in some of the […]

Special Reports Read more

Afghanistan: Der schwierige Weg in die Eigenständigkeit

AAN Team •

SRF, 10 June 2016 Tatsächlich wurden in den vergangenen Monaten Hunderte von Gefangenen entlassen – viel mehr als zuvor. Das habe verschiedene Gründe, sagt Martine van Bijlert vom «Afghan Analyst Network» [sic] in Kabul: «Gefangene werden entlassen, weil es zum Beispiel nicht genügend Beweise gab, sie festzuhalten. Andere haben ihre Zeit abgesessen, oder sie werden […]

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A Slow Start: Afghan voter registration in urban centres first

Obaid Ali • Ali M Latifi •

On 25 May 2013, voter registration for the 2014 presidential election officially kicked off throughout Afghanistan. Female registration has been slow, even though the process is for the moment limited to the provincial capitals. Also general turn-out has been quite low and the process has proven to be cumbersome. It is however still very early […]

Political Landscape Read more

War Doves: The Afghan sport of pigeon flying

Fabrizio Foschini •

It is a familiar sight in Kabul’s springtime skies: pigeons flying in thick flocks, circling and dipping, reacting to a man on a rooftop waving a stick. Kaftar bazi or the Play of Pigeons is an Afghan national sport – one of the calmer sort. This doesn’t mean it isn’t highly competitive. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini […]

Context and Culture Read more

CNAS and a Dangerous Case for Intervention

Gary Owen •

Registan (blog), 7 June 2013 Gary Owen/El Snarkistani presents a version of his AAN guest blog about the recent CNAS Afghanistan report here. He adds: ‘One of the more fun things I get to do as a would-be writer and pseudo-analyst focusing on Afghanistan is guest blog for the Afghanistan Analysts Network. … The fact […]

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