Month: July 2021

Menace, Negotiation, Attack: The Taleban take more District Centres across Afghanistan

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

The Afghan government has continued to lose district centres to the Taleban. By our reckoning, the insurgents have gained control of almost 200 district centres since 1 May, most of them since mid-June. Added to the ones they already controlled, that puts the insurgents in charge of just over half of all Afghanistan’s district centres. […]

16 Jul 2021

Afghanistan’s neighbours step up efforts to prevent civil war

The Guardian, 15 July 2021 The British daily quotes Thomas Ruttig on the meaning of the recent regional Afghanistan conference in Tashkent: Those talks are part of a regional scramble to explore all possible routes to ending the violence, said Thomas Ruttig, the director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. “Such conferences are useful to keep […]

15 Jul 2021

What are Afghanistan’s political scenarios as the Taliban makes new gains?

TRT World, 15 July 2021 AAN’s Obaid Ali is extensively quoted on possible Afghan scenarios in this report of the Turkish government broadcaster: “The [most likely] scenario appears to be that possibly the Taliban will take over the government in Afghanistan because they are not ready to share power with the current government and also […]

15 Jul 2021

‘Back to the darkness’: Afghan women speak from Taliban territory

Christian Science Monitor, 15 July 2021 This article quotes AAN recent research on rural women: The Afghanistan Analysts Network said that research it published this month, for example, “challenged the idea that women in rural areas are satisfied by what is often portrayed as ‘normal’ by the Taliban or other Afghan conservatives.” “Almost every woman […]

15 Jul 2021

Turkey offers help securing Afghan airport, but has Erdogan bitten off more than he can chew?

France 24, 14 July 2021 AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili is quoted by France’s public international broadcaster here: The Turkish airport proposal has been circulating in Afghanistan policy circles for months and the Taliban’s latest warning came as no surprise to most analysts. “It’s not unexpected for the Taliban to react like this to the news […]

14 Jul 2021

Mehr Flüchtlinge aus Afghanistan erwartet

ORF-Ö1, 14 July 2021 Listen to a short interview with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig with public Austrian radio (in German) on the consequences of western troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the recent Taleban offensive (available for 7 days after publication).

14 Jul 2021

Stream of Afghan asylum seekers reported in eastern Turkey

al-Monitor, 13 July 2021 Local news reports are now linking an alleged spike in border crossings to the ongoing US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and territorial gains by the Taliban in the country, prompting rumors of a looming migration wave to Turkey.“It is too early to talk about a mass influx, but there is an increase in the number of arrivals and there are unconfirmed news stories about an accumulation of people […]

13 Jul 2021

Taliban Executes 22 Afghan Commandos in Cold Blood

PJ Media, 13 July 2021 AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted here on the ability of Afghan warlords to fight the Taleban: Kate Clark from the Afghanistan Analysts Network said it’s uncertain how much of a fight the warlords could put up — even with their own enhanced militias. “We don’t know the capacity for actual […]

13 Jul 2021

Civil war imminent in Afghanistan as Taliban terror intensifies amidst withdrawal of NATO forces

National Herald, 13 July 2021 AAN research on rural women is quoted in this opinion piece in the Indian daily: Afghanistan Analysts Network, in a study ‘Between Hope and Fear: Rural Afghan women talk about peace and war’, narrates the happenings in large parts of the country on Afghan women activists’ unrelenting and articulate push […]

13 Jul 2021

“Glücksspiel mit dem Leben”: Immer mehr Afghanen flüchten vor Taliban

n-tv, 13 July 2021 A quote from AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in this article on the website of the German commercial TV broadcaster about the increasing number of Afghans trying to leave the country: Die Zahl der vor Gewalt fliehenden Menschen steigt Beobachtern zufolge wieder an. Gebildete versuchten, über Stipendien oder durch Investitionen in Nachbarländer oder […]

13 Jul 2021

Interview with Taliban’s Zabihullah Mujahid: Full Transcript

ToloNews, 12 July 2021 A revealing interview with the Taleban spokesman, including a “no” to elections and women singing 8and much more).

12 Jul 2021

AAN Dossier XXIX: Living with the Taleban

AAN Team •

With the Taleban rapidly gaining ground in Afghanistan, it seemed useful to turn to AAN’s past research on what life under the Taleban has looked like for those living in insurgency-affected areas over the last few years. From December 2018 to January 2021, AAN conducted research first into how public services were delivered in a […]

12 Jul 2021