Month: December 2019

Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan 40 years ago today, on 25 December 1979. Two days later, on 27 December, they toppled and killed Amin’s Khalqi’s government which had called for the troops and had assumed they had come for their rescue. The resulting occupation that would last for more than ten years became the last direct […]

25 Dec 2019

War and Peace Read more

Afghan President Leads in Disputed Vote as Opposition Protests

AAN • Thomas Ruttig •

New York Times, 22 December 2019 Mujib Mashal of the NY Times ends his article on today#s preliminary presidential election result with an AAN quote: “Trying to get facts straight is a labyrinthine task,” the Afghan Analysts Network, a private think tank in Kabul, wrote in a detailed report as the dispute raged in early […]

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‘تقسیم شمال و جنوب’؛ نقشه‌ای از نتیجه ابتدایی انتخابات اففانستان که جنجالی شد

Baztab, 23 December 2019 The Afghan news agency copies AAN’s map on the majorities in Afghanistan’s provinces according to the 2019 Afghan presidential election’s preliminary results.

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Freed at Last: Three Afghans sent to Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003 are finally home

Kate Clark •

Three Afghans, who were detained and rendered to the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003, and then transferred to the United Arab Emirates 2016 and what turned out to be further incarceration, have been released. Obaidullah and Mohammed Karim from Khost and Hamidullah from Kabul have also been allowed to return […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Frieden in Afghanistan: Wie stehen die Chancen für 2020?

Die Zeit, 23 December 2019 This article in the German weekly looking back at US-Taleban talks in 2019 and the prospects of them resuming and leading to peace quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig: “Die Taliban sehen die Verhandlungen mit den USA als den kürzeren Weg zur Macht – zumindest kürzer als ein womöglich jahrelanger Krieg, deshalb […]

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Afghanistan’s 2019 Elections (27): The preliminary result, finally, but no end to controversy

Ali Yawar Adili •

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has finally announced the preliminary results of the 28 September presidential election. The announcement came on 22 December, almost three months after the vote and more than two months after the results announcement had been envisaged in the electoral calendar. In these preliminary results, President Ashraf Ghani has crossed the […]

Political Landscape Read more

Opposition nennt Präsidentschaftswahl “betrügerisch”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 Dezember 2019 The leading German, Munich-based daily quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig as saying “Die Legitimität des künftigen Präsidenten wird auf schwachen Füßen stehen”, sagte Thomas Ruttig, der Co-Chef des unabhängigen Kabuler “Afghanistan Analysts Network”. (The legitimacy of the future [Afghan] president will stand on a weak basis.) The daily, however, did not […]

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Präsidentschaftswahlen in Afghanistan: Schaler Wahlsieg in Afghanistan

Tageszeitung, 22 December 2019 Guest analysis of the preliminary Afghan election result by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig for the Berlin-based daily (in German).

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Afghanistans gefährliche Wahl: Amtsinhaber Ghani bei Präsidentenwahl vorn

dpa/Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, 22 December 2019 In this summary on the Afghan preliminary presidential elections result by the leading German news agency, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted as saying that the controversy over 300,000 votes could come up again and solving the problem could take weeks (in German): Der Afghanistan-Experte Thomas Ruttig von der Kabuler Denkfabrik […]