Month: February 2017

El Pais, 27 February 2017 In this article about the remarkable Taleban message on tree planting in Afghanistan, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted here as saying (replying to a question whether this could be a coded message starting the Taleban’s annual spring offensive) that he doesn’t believe that and that this is perhaps a way […]

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Life after Guantanamo: A tale of two Afghan friends

AAN •

Express Tribune, 27 February 2017 In this article about two former Afghan inmates of Guantanamo who, after their release, chose divergent paths – one became an Islamic State jihadist, the other joined the US-led government fight to crush the group – quotes some passages from Kate Clark’s AAN dispatch about Afghans mistakenly apprehended or wrongfully turned over […]

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Afghanistan: Ein Land im Krieg

Links 1-2/2017 (27 February 2017) An interview with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the current situation in Afghanistan, a comparison with his first stay in Afghanistan in the 1980s and and a review of the German engagement in the country (in German) by the Dresden-based party newsletter of the Saxonion Die Linke (Left Party). A full […]

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A Reaper drone comes into land at Kandahar Airbase (Flying Officer Owen Cheverton: 2009)

Drone warfare 1: Afghanistan, birthplace of the armed drone

Kate Clark •

Using drones to carry out targeted killings has become an integral part of the United States’ ‘war on terror’. Afghanistan in the late 1990s was the laboratory where the US developed armed drones as it searched for a way to deal with Osama bin Laden who was then ordering attacks on American targets from his […]

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Kurioses aus Afghanistan: Die Taliban entdecken ihre grüne Ader

Tageszeitung, 26 February 2017 Short op-ed by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the Taleban leadership’s appeal to Afghans to plant trees.

26 Feb 2017

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“Die Botschaftsleute können die Sicherheitslage nicht akkurat bewerten”

Deutschlandfunk, 25 February 2017 German MP Omid Nouripour, in this interview after his recent Afghanistan visit, points to AAN co-director Thomas Ruttig’s assessment of the German government’s security report on the country as “devastating”: Es gibt zum Beispiel das Afghan Analysis Network [sic], das vor Ort arbeitet. Schauen Sie sich mal die Analyse genau dieses Netzwerks […]

25 Feb 2017

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Massive Kritik am Lagebericht des Auswärtigen Amts

Niedersachsen Refugee Council, 23 February 2017 The Webseite of Niedersachsen’s [Lower Saxony] Refugee Council in Germany re-posted AAN co-director Thomas Ruttig’s analysis and critique of the German federal government’s report on the “security situation in Afghanistan, pertaining to asylum and deportation”, from his personal German website Afghanistan Zhaghdablai.

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Zurück in der Gefahrenzone: Viele der jüngst abgeschobenen Afghanen wissen nicht, wohin sie gehen können

Frankfurter Rundschau, 23 February 2017 In this report about the arrival of the third group of rejected and deported Afghan asylum seekers from Germany, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted as an eye witness: Die Männer wirkten nach Beobachtung des deutschen Afghanistan-Experten Thomas Ruttig, der bei der Landung am Flughafen von Kabul vor Ort war, relativ […]

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Abschiebung in den Krieg: Niemand weiß, wo die Bundesregierung sichere Gebiete in Afghanistan sieht und sie sagt’s nicht

Radio Dreyeckland, 23 February 2017 The independent radio station serving the German-Swiss-French triangle “Dreyeckland” interviewed AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on the latest deportations of rejected Afghan asylum seekers from Germany and the security situation in Afghanistan. Listen to the audio (in German).

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Dritte Sammelabschiebung von Afghanen

dpa/Berliner Zeitung and numerous other German media, 23 February 2017 In this dpa correspondence about the arrival of the third German charter flight with rejected and deported Afghan asylum seekers, author Christine Roehrs quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, pointing out that at least six of the 18 deportees originate from provinces even deemed unsafe by the […]

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Abschiebung nach Afghanistan: Keine Kekse für die Rückkehrer

Tageszeitung, 23 February 2017 New op-ed by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in the Berlin-based daily, describing the arrival of the third German flight with rejected and deported Afghan asylum seekers in Kabul.