Month: September 2021

Taliban Evict Hazara Shiite Muslims From Villages, Rewarding Loyalists

Wall Street Journal, 30 September 2021 The US daily reports about Taleban land seizures in Daikundi province, about which German magazine Der Spiegel reported in more detail (see AAN recommended reads), and quotes AAN’s Ehsan Qaane: Regardless of the merits of the land dispute, “the way the Taliban force locals to leave their houses and […]

30 Sep 2021

How the Taliban governs itself

TRT World, 27 September 2021 AAN’s Obaid li is quoted in this piece on the Turkish broadcaster’s website on the structures of the Taleban, on their Rahbari Shura: “In some cases, the Shura is a consultation body. In some other cases, the Shura has different responsibilities and also some authority,” says Obaid Ali, an Afghan […]

27 Sep 2021

The Khalid Payenda Interview (1): An insider’s view of politicking, graft and the fall of the Republic

Kate Clark • Roxanna Shapour •

What was it like to be a reformer at the heart of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan? The Republic’s last finance minister, Khalid Payenda, has given AAN an insider’s perspective. It is a sobering account of the obstacles that prevented him and other reformers ending government corruption and holding wrongdoers to account. Payenda discussed with […]

27 Sep 2021

Afghans pour out in Kabul to demand release of frozen reserves

Yeni Şafak, 25 September 2021 The Turkish newspaper quotes a recent AAN report on the Afghan economy: Grants to Afghanistan amount to $8.5 billion per year – equal to 43% of the country’s gross domestic product – and pay for 75% of public expenditure, 50% of its budget, and around 90% of government security spending, […]

25 Sep 2021

With women forced out of work, many Afghan families are facing starvation

Independent, 21 September 2021 This opinion piece in the British newspaper (behind a pay wall) quotes from recent AAN research on the deteriorating social situation in Afghanistan, price hikes etc. See also here, not behind a pay wall.

21 Sep 2021

Starvation Is as Much a Threat to Afghan Women as the Taliban

Bloomberg/Washington Post, 19 September 2021 The news agency quotes from recent AAN research on the social situation in Afghanistan: As the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research group, wrote on Sept. 6, the price of essential items, from flour to cooking oil, has risen while the value of the afghani, the currency, is depreciating. In a second-hand market […]

19 Sep 2021

Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan

The Guardian, 17 September 2021 AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted here on the Taleban’s education policy for girls and women pre-2001 and currently: “Education and literacy are so strongly valued in Islam that the Taliban could not ban girls schools on Islamic grounds, so they always said they would open them when security improved. It […]

17 Sep 2021

The Failure of Transitional Justice in Afghanistan: Impunity Turned Into Law

Just Security, 16 September 2021 Huma Saeed, in this essay on justice and accountability during the past 20 years of the Afghan conflict, quotes from a 2013 AAN report: In effect, the United States reinvigorated warlords who had been militarily defeated and politically relegated to obscurity under the Taliban. Some factional commanders even anticipated disarmament […]

16 Sep 2021

Questions in Kabul as two top Taliban leaders ‘missing from public view’

The Guardian, 14 September 2021 The British daily quotes recent AAN research about a power struggle in the Taleban leadership and the disappearence from public view of their deputy leader Mulla Baradar: Baradar was already considered to have lost out in the internal Taliban disputes over the formation of the new government, according to the […]

14 Sep 2021

UK’s plans for Afghan resettlement ‘too vague and limited’

The National, 14 September 2021 The Dubai-based daily quotes AAN’s Kate Clark on the dire economic and aid situation in now again Taleban-ruled Afghanistan: A journalist, Kate Clark, warned of an “impending humanitarian catastrophe” if the supply of foreign aid is cut off.“Afghanistan is a country that has relied heavily on foreign income and aid […]

14 Sep 2021

Taliban Denies Deputy Prime Minister Baradar Shot Dead Over Internal Dispute

RFE/RL, 14 September 2021 In this article, looking at the new Taleban cabinet in Afghanistan, related AAN research is quoted: The Afghanistan Analysts Network concluded from those appointments that Baradar lost out in internal Taliban disputes over the formation of the caretaker government. Experts from the Afghanistan Analysts Network say Mullah Haibatullah’s absence from all […]

14 Sep 2021

The War on Terror Was Corrupt From the Start

The New York Times, 13 September 2021 In this opinion piece, author Sarah Stockman quotes from AAN’s Kate Clark’s major report of Afghanistan as a rentier economy: A report by Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network outlined how Afghanistan’s rentier economy undermined efforts to build a democracy. Since money flowed from foreigners instead of taxes, […]

13 Sep 2021