Month: December 2021

The Final Flights of the Afghan Air Force

The Diplomat, 30 December 2021 Interesting rendering on the last operations, the fate and whereabouts of the Afghan Air Force, based on interviews with pilots now evacuated to the US, and very detailed information and figures.

30 Dec 2021

Afghanistan’s Conflict in 2021 (2): Republic collapse and Taleban victory in the long-view of history

Kate Clark •

For the first time in the long decades of conflict endured by Afghans since the 1978 communist coup sparked armed rebellion, Afghanistan is largely at peace. And for only the second time in that period, the country is under one unitary authority. This then is a historic moment, but will it last? In the second […]

30 Dec 2021

Afghanistan’s Conflict in 2021 (1): The Taleban’s sweeping offensive as told by people on the ground

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As Afghanistan’s former leaders publicly reflect and comment on the events that led to the fall of the Republic, it has been easy to lose sight of what those months in the summer of 2021 were like for the people who lived through them. In this first of two reports we look back at 2021’s […]

28 Dec 2021

Afghanistan’s Uncertain Future After A Tumultuous Year 

AFP/France24, 27 December 2021 Research from an AAN special report by Kate Clark is published in this article: In a special report for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, Kate Clark said, “The implications of the takeover were disastrous and immediate” (AAN). “They had no ideas for how they would govern the Afghan state without aid,” she […]

27 Dec 2021

Living in a Collapsed Economy (2): Even the people who still have money are struggling

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

In this second instalment of ‘Living in a Collapsed Economy,’ we seek to map what Afghanistan’s economic collapse means, at the household level, for the relatively fortunate – those who were wealthy to start with or had a diverse set of income streams, as well as those who still have a stable salary. We hear […]

23 Dec 2021

Realpolitik and the 2021 National Budget: The toxic struggle for money and power that undermined Afghanistan’s Republic

Roxanna Shapour •

The 2021 new year did not get off to a promising start in Afghanistan. The conflict was raging, violence was at an all-time high for winter and the so-called peace talks were hobbling along in Doha. In what turned out to be the waning months of the Republic, lawmakers and government were deep in the […]

21 Dec 2021

Once a Symbol of U.S. Strength, an Afghan District Now Faces Dire Times

New York Times, 18 December 2021 AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted in this reportage from Marja, Helmand, as saying: “The Taliban don’t seem to have had a sense of how dependent the economy was on foreign support, which they benefited from as did everyone else,” said Kate Clark, the co-director of Afghanistan Analysts Network. “Even […]

18 Dec 2021

Afghanistan opium trade booms since Taliban takeover

Deutsche Welle, 10 December 2021 Quotes from AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in this report: Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said the Taliban are not the only factor driving the drug economy in Afghanistan in recent years. “The previous government struggled with the Taliban for influence in rural areas, and many of its people were […]

11 Dec 2021

UN, World Bank under pressure to offer aid to Afghanistan

The Business Standard, 11 December 2021 A quote from AAN research in this article which actually rflects UN figures: Now, the Afghanistan Analysts Network estimates around half of Afghanistan’s 40.2 million people are at “crisis or emergency levels of food security,” and more than half of the population will be in peril as winter progresses.

11 Dec 2021

Inside the Fall of Kabul

New York Times Magazine, 10 December 2021 Matt Aikins’ real inside story (from Kabul) about the collapse of the Afghan (Islamic) Republic – the run-up to it; attempts to organise a peaceful handover; Ghani’s departure; the evacuation (including Matt’s own brave action); the new ‘Emirate’.

10 Dec 2021

Climate famine in Afghanistan

The Ecologist, 8 December 2021 This article lists two AAN reports among its recommended readings: Mohammed Asam Mayar, Global Warming and Afghanistan: Drought, hunger and thirst expect to worsen. Afghanistan Analysts Network, 6 Nov. and Hannah Duncan and Kate Clark, Afghanistan’s looming catastrophe: What next for the Taleban and the Donors? Afghanistan Analysts Network, 6 Sep.

8 Dec 2021

A Taxing Narrative: Miscalculating Revenues and Misunderstanding the Conflict in Afghanistan

AREU, 15 October 2021 One of those reports about Afghanistan you should not miss, as its author – David Mansfield, the authority on this fild – deconstructs one of the widest-believed misconceptions on the Taleban – wildly inflated figures of how much they earn from the drug economy. Here a short abstract of the report: […]

7 Dec 2021