Month: September 2020

The impact of COVID-19 on older persons [in Afghanistan]

Samuel Hall.org, September 2020 The migration and displacement-focused social enterprise has looked at the growing elderly population of the country under the Covid19 pandemic and found that “Government ministries advised those over age 60 to remain inside their homes to minimize spread of the virus. Elderly women had higher rates of exposure, given their roles […]

30 Sep 2020

AAN Dossier XXVII: Afghanistan’s contested 2019 presidential election and its aftermath

AAN Team •

A year on from Afghanistan’s fourth presidential poll since the fall of the Taleban regime, AAN is publishing all our reporting on the election and its aftermath in a new dossier. Our 37 AAN reports comprise coverage of the run-up to the election; on-the-day reporting; analysis of the controversies over counting, verifying and announcing the result, including our […]

30 Sep 2020

In Proud Corners of Afghanistan [Panjshir], New Calls for Autonomy

New York Times, 28 September 2020 Distrust and defiance of the government, rejection of peace talks with the Taleban and calls for decentralisation and re-establishing the Northern Alliance.

28 Sep 2020

Afghanistan’s 2019 Elections (31): A review of the disputed presidential election and its aftermath

Ali Yawar Adili •

On the first anniversary of Afghanistan’s fourth – and much disputed – presidential election of the post-Taleban order, we look back at the events surrounding the election and its aftermath to provide a concluding overview. AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili reviews what happened before, during and after the election, looks at the votes that swung the […]

28 Sep 2020

جنجال مذهب رسمی: محمد‌موسی شفیقِ امروز کجا است؟ (The Problem with the Official Mazhab: Where is today’s Mhd Musa Shafiq?)

8 Sobh, 26 September 2020 A very instructive article (in Dari) by Ali Karimi in the Kabul daily 8am about the fight over whether to make Hanafi fiqh the only constitutionally enshrined version of Islamic law in the 1964 constitution during a Loya Jirga and the role of former liberal prime minister Muhammad Musa Shafiq, […]

26 Sep 2020

Catapults, Pickups and Tankers: Cross-Border Production and Trade and How It Shapes the Political Economy of the Borderland of Nimroz

AREU, 24 September 2020 By our AREU colleagues, an excellent new report by David Mansfield about the political economy of Afghanistan’ southwestern-most province of Nimroz, on the border with Iran, which is increasingly important for its income from the cross-border trade, both licit and illicit. (The catapults of the title refer to a pittoresk method […]

24 Sep 2020

Covid-19 in Afghanistan (6): A closer look at the MoPH’s official figures

Rohullah Sorush •

When AAN first tried to map the trends in the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in Afghanistan in March 2020, almost three months after the first outbreak in China, we found that the country had only been moderately affected. Since then, the number of confirmed infections and deaths have risen, but numbers remain relatively modest, particularly […]

24 Sep 2020

Afghan-Taliban peace talks: What’s next?

BBC, 23 September 2020 Lyse Doucet’s insight and inside information on the Afghan peace talks in Doha in an essay that reads like poetry.

23 Sep 2020

AAN Co-Director gives evidence on UK strategy towards Afghanistan to the British parliament

Our co-director, Kate Clark, was asked to give testimony to the International Relations and Defence Committee of the UK House of Lord’s (the British parliament’s unelected second chamber). It has launched an inquiry aimed at exploring the UK’s diplomatic, military and aid strategy for Afghanistan, especially in the light of the Doha talks. The committee […]

22 Sep 2020

Translation of the biographies of the Taleban negotiation team

AAN •

AAN’s translation of the biographies of the Taleban negotiation team members from the original Dari published by the Taleban here, on 12 September 2020, the same day intra-Afghan negotiations began in Doha. AAN has published biographies of the team, drawing on a wide range of sources, here. Honourable Sheikh Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Mawlawi Sheikh Abdul Hakim, son […]

21 Sep 2020

As America draws down its troops, Afghans clear their throats

The Economist, 19 September 2020 AAN research is quoted on this analysis of the Afghan peace talks in Doha: Hopes that violence would subside after America’s deal with the Taliban were dampened in the summer. A study by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a research group, found that both sides have become more restrained in proclaiming […]

19 Sep 2020

In Waziristan, Locals Worried Over Taliban Regrouping

RFE/RL, 16 September 2020 At RFE/RL’s Gandhara blog, Abubakar Seddique sees an emboldened Pakistani Taleban umbrella group, the TTP, after reuniting with two splinter groups, parallel to Afghan peace talks involving this country’s Taleban.

16 Sep 2020