Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: July 2016

Taliban leader suggests softening stance on women’s rights

AAN •

Stars and Stripes, 22 July 2016 Reporting about a recent pledge by the Afghan Taleban’s new leader to give more rights to women living in areas under the group’s control, the daily newspaper quotes AAN’s Kate Clark: Kate Clark, a senior analysts with the Afghanistan Analysts Network, cautioned that conceptions of what constitute women’s rights “can […]

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AAN’s Jelena Bjelica discusses the issue of Afghanistan’s Landless Refugees – July 2016

Jelena Bjelica •

More than 5.8 million Afghans, about 20 per cent of Afghanistan’s population, are refugees who have returned home since the fall of the Taleban according to UNHCR figures. Many found their houses destroyed or occupied, or discovered that a new set of laws had scrapped their tenancy rights. The government plan for distributing land to […]

Podcasts Read more

Pakistan oder Afghanistan: Die schwierige Frage nach der Herkunft des Attentäters

Thomas Ruttig •

Die Welt, 21 July 2016 The conservative German daily quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in the ongoing in enquiry in the country about the background, including the (Afghan or Pakistani) nationality and citizenship, of the train attacker from Würzburg who had registered himself as an Afghan when seeking asylum. Thomas says from the info available the […]

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Why are Afghans refugees, and is Isis widespread there?

AAN •

dpa/The Local, 19 July 2016 This background material, quoting and linking to AAN on some of its aspects, has been distributed by the German news agency dpa in the context of the recent axe attack of a suspected Afghan refugee on a train in Germany.

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Afghanistan: Die verzweifelte Suche nach Zukunft

AAN •

Frankfurter Rundschau, 19 July 2016 Willi Germund, in the German daily, quotes both from the AAN/FES study and AAN’s Borhan Osman, on the situation and motives of Afghan refugees and on radicalisation among young Afghans: „In Afghanistan verlassen die Bewohner jeden Tag ihre Heimat. Manche bleiben woanders im Land, die meisten gehen nach Pakistan und […]

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Families Blame Each Other After Afghan Child Bride Burns to Death

AAN •

New York Times, 18 July 2016 Hair-raising account on a story of a recurrent theme: under-age marriages and domestic violence against Afghan women – a case from Ghor.

Recommended Reads Read more

Speaking of the South China Sea: International Law, Arbitrals, and Central Asia

AAN •

The Diplomat, 16 July 2016 The Asia/Pacific-focussed web magazine finds in its “Weekend Central Asia reads”: Christian Bleuer’s two dispatches (here and here) for the Afghan [sic] Analysts Network on the myth of Chechens fighting in Afghanistan are worth reading, as is Kate Clark’s recollection of searching for Chechens in 2000 in Afghanistan.

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Afghan Islamic State supporters posted this photo: a small group of Daesh-affiliated fighters raising the IS flag inside a mosque in Afghanistan's northeast, they said. Photo: unknown IS supporter on social media.

The 2016 Insurgency in the North: Raising the Daesh flag (although not for long)

Obaid Ali •

The flag of the Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) has been flown twice in the last year in Takhar and Baghlan provinces by a group of ethnic Uzbek Afghans who had set up their own insurgent group, Jundullah, in 2009. It had enjoyed an uneasy alliance with the Taleban, but tried to use the turmoil […]

War and Peace Read more

External paper: “Taliban Views on a Future State”

AAN •

Few if any Taleban leaders say they want to re-establish the Islamic Emirate or revive the policies that drew the world’s opprobrium upon them when they controlled the Afghan state in the 1990s. That is the conclusion drawn in this report jointly written by Borhan Osman of the Afghanistan Analysts Network and Anand Gopal, author […]

External publications Read more
Tall-hatted Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev opened a ‘Chechen embassy’ in Kabul in 2000. Photo: Natalia Medvedeva (2000)

Chechens in Afghanistan 3 (Flash from the Past): Diplomats, yes, but fighters?

Kate Clark •

Following the authoritative account of Chechens – or rather lack of Chechens – in Afghanistan by Christian Bleuer, and how they have frequently been reported on, but rarely encountered, AAN’s Kate Clark here describes her own experiences with Chechens in 2000. In January of that year, she reported on the opening of a Chechen embassy […]

Regional Relations Read more

Keine Rede mehr von Abzug: Kommentar Afghanistan-Einsatz

Thomas Ruttig •

Tageszeitung, 11 July 2016 Here is Thomas Ruttig’s op-ed commentary on the NATO decision to extend Mission Resolute Support – without an end date (in German). His separate summary of the Warsaw NATO summit’s decisions only in the print version.

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