Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: June 2017

Talibanit eivät luovuta [The Taleban don’t give up]

Thomas Ruttig •

Ulkopolitiikka 1/2017 (March) With some delay, for our Finnish-speaking readers: article portraying the Taleban 15 years after their regime in Afghanistan was overthrown – with quotes from AAN’s Borhan Osman and Thomas Ruttig and guest author Anand Gopal in the Finnish Journal “Foreign Affairs”.  

AAN in the Media Read more

From ‘Traditionalist’ Islam to ‘Modern’ Islamist Nationalism: A new AAN report about ideology in the Afghan Taleban

Alex Strick-Van-Linschoten •

The Taleban’s ideology has transformed over the past two decades. While the movement once typified a ‘traditionalist’ Islam – that is, it sought to articulate and defend a particular concept of Islam found in southern Pashtun villages – it is now, in its insurgency phase, closer to forms of political Islam espoused in the Arab […]

Political Landscape Read more

Ideology in the Afghan Taliban: A new AAN report

Alex Strick-Van-Linschoten • Anand Gopal •

The Taleban’s ideology has transformed over the past two decades. While the movement once typified a ‘traditionalist’ Islam – that is, it sought to articulate and defend a particular concept of Islam found in southern Pashtun villages – it is now, in its insurgency phase, closer to forms of political Islam espoused in the Arab […]

Special Reports Read more

Berlin, 5 July 2017: Book presentation with AAN

Thomas Ruttig •

“A Society of Intervention: An essay about about conflicts in Afghanistan and other military interventions” – this is the title of a new book by Michael Daxner, Professor of Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin, former advisor to the Afghan Minister of Higher Education and prolific author on Afghanistan. It will be presented at the Berlin office […]

Events Read more

A New Afghanistan Strategy Must Avoid Perpetual War

Martine van Bijlert •

National Interest, 28 June 2017 Article extensively references AAN’s recent dispatch on the need for reform in the Ministry of Interior: To an American audience, it is sometimes difficult to grasp how Afghan government corruption prevents U.S.-allied forces from defeating the insurgency. A few key examples will serve to illuminate the gravity of the situation. […]

AAN in the Media Read more

Investigating Post-2003 War crimes: Afghan Government wants “one more year” from the ICC

Ehsan Qaane •

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) announced on 14 November 2016 that it would “imminently” make its final decision whether to ask the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber for authorisation to open an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since Afghanistan signed the ICC statute in 2003. The Afghan government, however, has asked […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more
Andrew Quilty, an award-wining Australian photojournalist. Credit: Balazs Gardi

In the Light of the Conflict: Photographer Andrew Quilty’s experience in Afghanistan

AAN • Jelena Bjelica •

Afghanistan has been an inspiration for many photographers, but very few opt to base themselves in a war-torn country. Andrew Quilty, an Australian photojournalist, is an exception: he came to Afghanistan in 2013 and has been based in Kabul since. Many remember his haunting photographs taken in the ruins of the Kunduz hospital, a week […]

Context and Culture Read more

Afghanistan’s ‘hill of widows’ live in a world apart

AAN •

Daily Mail/AFP, 23 June 2017 A new story about the Zanabad, the ‘widows hill’ settlement in a Kabul outskirt, quoting an earlier AAN story by Naheed Esar, after the demise of the elder of the place, Bibikoh, in 2016: Bibikoh organised literacy classes, sewing workshops and food distributions with the support of an NGO, says […]

AAN in the Media Read more
10 June 2017, outside one of several protest tents -- this one on 40 Metre Road near the Taimani Project -- that were erected on main roads around Kabul in response to both a truck bombing near the German Embassy that killed 150 and wounded as many as 500 as well as the police response to demonstrations that followed in which several protestors were killed. The last tent was removed three weeks after it was erected. Credit: Andrew Quilty for AAN

AAN Q&A: Tents and Bullets – the crackdown on the Kabul protests

AAN Team •

The last of at least seven tents that protestors had set up in Kabul – after the horrific 31 May bomb attack and in protest against police brutality used during a march they organised on 2 June 2017 – has been removed. Afghan police forces dismantled it late in the evening of Monday, 19 June […]

Political Landscape Read more

Lost at Tora Bora (2005)

AAN •

New York Times, 11 September 2005 A useful re-read about the Tora Bora cave complex, “part of a C.I.A.-financed complex built for the mujahedeen,” with Osama bin Laden’s involvement. Featuring also Mawlawi Khales, Haji Abdul Qadir and Engineer Mahmud (both late) and a certain “Brig. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of some 4,000 marines.”

Recommended Reads Read more
Afghan migrants, including minors, living in inhumane conditions in a Belgrade, Serbia squat. Photo: Martine van Bijlert (Nov 2016)

AAN’s Martine van Bijlert and Jelena Bjelica discuss their research work on migration. Episode: 3 – June, 2017

Jelena Bjelica •

AAN’s Martine van Bijlert and Jelena Bjelica in conversation with Roxanna Shapour on their research on Afghan migrants.

Podcasts Read more

Svetovni dan beguncev: Ljudje hočejo naprej, a so vrnjeni nazaj

AAN •

Večer, 20 June 2017 AAN research quoted and linked in the Slovenian news website’s  article about Afghan refugees in Europe: Med leti 2015 in 2016 naj bi iz Afganistana proti Evropi zbežalo okoli 250 000 Afganistank in Afganistancev. Po poročanjuorganizacije Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) se je to število zdaj zmanjšalo in lani se je izjemno […]

AAN in the Media Read more

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