Month: January 2015

Living in a minefield: the refugee camp [in Khost] where Pakistanis are a step from death

AAN •

The Guardian, 29 January 2015 May Jeong’s reportage from the “Gulan refugee camp, home to Pakistanis fleeing North Waziristan, on the site of an Afghan battlefield.”

30 Jan 2015

Winnowing the Cabinet List: MPs vote, nine of 27 ministers endorsed

Kate Clark •

Afghanistan finally has some ministers – nine men; yes, all those who succeeded in getting the lower house’s endorsement were male. Today (26 January 2015), the Wolesi Jirga rejected ten other candidates, while eight other prospective ministers had already fallen by the wayside (because of having a second passport, a criminal conviction, not having a […]

28 Jan 2015

Women Suffering, Women Looking for Ways Out: A photo exhibition in Barcelona

Thomas Ruttig •

 “A woman who wants to marry the man who raped her. . . . Brides ending up mutilated after their first sexual experience. . . . Women with university training and a career condemned to live with husbands they do not love because, if they divorce, they would lose their children.” These are captions to […]

27 Jan 2015

ISIS in Afghanistan is like the boogeyman under the bed

AAN •

The Week, 27 January 2015 The Week, the weekly to the Global Post, relaunches an article by Jean MacKenzie and Aziz Ahmad Tasal, reflecting on the reports of IS intrusions into the Af-Pak arena, quoting, among others, AAN’s Borhan Osman with a differentiated, cautioning statement. Osman, the authors write, has “debunked many of the myths that […]

27 Jan 2015

Biographies of the Initial Cabinet List – 2015

The full biographies of the initial cabinet list can be read here. Biographies of the two newly introduced candidates, Hakimi and Salahi, can be read at the end of this AAN report.)

26 Jan 2015

Fears of ‘Islamic State’ in Afghanistan

AAN •

Deutsche Welle, 26 January 2015 Another article about IS sightings in Afghanistan, with a brief – and cautioning quote – of AAN’s Borhan Osman: Borhan Osman, analyst at the Afghan [sic] Analysts Network is skeptical of the reports on “IS” in Afghanistan. “It is too early to judge whether ‘IS’ in Afghanistan is gaining ground.”

26 Jan 2015

Battleground Kankur: Afghan students’ difficult way into higher education

Obaid Ali •

For some hundred thousand Afghan high school graduates, the university entry tests, known as kankur, have started. The first to sit the exam, from December onwards, were students in more-remote provinces, for example Badghis, Bamyan, Daikundi, Nuristan, Wardak, Logar and Sar-e Pul. Pictures of rows of students sitting on city squares  or mosques taking the […]

23 Jan 2015

Afghanistan-Mission unter falschen Vorzeichen

AAN •

Handelsblatt, 21 January 2015 Philipp Münch’s shorter German version of his January 2015 AAN discussion paper titled “Resolute Support Light” has been published as a guest article in the German economic daily.

21 Jan 2015

The Cabinet and the Parliament: Afghanistan’s government in trouble before it is formed

Kate Clark •

President Ashraf Ghani has introduced his cabinet to the parliament, which now has to confirm or reject his candidates. But by the time the list was officially presented to the MPs on Tuesday, 20 January 2015, he had already lost three prospective ministers and the position of several others was looking shaky. The choices of […]

20 Jan 2015

Afganistan. Kalifat pod Hindukuszem

Thomas Ruttig •

PAP/Gazeta Wyborcza, 20 January 2015 The Polish news agency, reprinted in one of the largest dailies of the country, publishes an article looking at reports of IS appearances in Afghanistan. It also quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, cautioning not take every appearing black flag automatically for that of the IS; considering that some commanders might use […]

20 Jan 2015

Afghan Cabinet nominee wanted by Interpol for tax evasion

AAN •

Reuters, 17 January 2015 Reporting on accusations of tax evasion that brought him on an Interpol ‘most wanted’ list against the candidate for Afghan agriculture minister Mohammad Yaqub Haidari, Reuters quoted a “biography of Haidari compiled by the Afghanistan Analysts Network [that] cited a recent television interview in which he said he once ran an agricultural import-export […]

17 Jan 2015

Islamic State Group Reaches for Afghanistan and Pakistan

AAN •

AP/New York Times, 16 January 2015 In this report, among a growing number of ‘sightings’, the “new, emerging threat from the Islamic State group” for “Afghanistan and Pakistan, home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants” is reported. Also AAN’s Borhan Osman is quoted with his non-alarmistic attitude to the issue: “… the IS would struggle to mount […]

16 Jan 2015