Month: January 2022

The Betrayal: America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan 

The Atlantic, 31 January 2022 A long but worthy read by award-winning George Packer, for example on the slow, too late, bureaucratically garbled US evacuation of Afghan allies: … the president’s political advisers worried that the right would hammer Biden for resettling thousands of Muslims while historic numbers of Central American refugees were already overrunning […]

31 Jan 2022

Who Gets to Go to School? (2) The Taleban and education through time

S Reza Kazemi • Kate Clark •

In trying to understand Taleban policy on state education, especially for girls, our first report heard from people around the country. They painted a picture of primary schools for boys and girls, and boys’ secondary schools having generally re-opened after the Taleban captured power on 15 August, but of girls’ secondary schools opening only very patchily. […]

31 Jan 2022

Mens Vesten stiller urealistiske krav til Taleban, sulter afghanerne, og børn dør

Politiken, 30 January 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted here in the leading Danish quality daily (in Danish), article behind a paywall.

30 Jan 2022

The Afghan refugees who fled the Taliban for a safer life in Kyiv

The Times (not online), 28 January 2022 In Kyiv’s streets, where Ukrainians talk boldly and brashly of war, or just ignore its approach, stranded Afghans who only a few months ago escaped conflict in their own country are watching with jaded eyes, readying themselves for what may come. “I thought Kabul would resist for months […]

28 Jan 2022

Long neglected, Afghan villagers look to outside world for aid

Christian Science Monitor, 27 January 2022 The U.S. web-based daily quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on reasons for the negligence of difficult-to-access, rural areas: “In the beginning, it was a conceptual mistake”, says Thomas Ruttig, a co-founder of the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) who has worked on Afghanistan, including for the United Nations, since 1988. “The […]

27 Jan 2022

Who Gets to Go to School? (1): What people told us about education since the Taleban took over

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

Taleban policy towards women and girls is one of the prisms through which the movement has been studied – and judged – ever since the Taleban first came to power in the mid-nineties. A touchstone for many Afghans and outside observers was whether, after capturing power nationally in August 2021, they would allow girls to […]

26 Jan 2022

Afghanistan-Konferenz in Oslo: Gespräche ja, Anerkennung nein

Tageszeitung, 25 January 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig analyses the Oslo talks between various donor governments and the Taleban, also including Afghan civil society and protesting women’s representatives – with an additional op-ed commentary that such talks are the only way to have a chance to rescue millions of Afghans threatened by famine and improve the […]

25 Jan 2022

Mit den Taliban reden?

Deutschlandfunk, 24 January 2022 Listen to a 10-minutes interview with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the Oslo Taleban talks, first part of a podcast on German public broadcaster DLF (in German).

24 Jan 2022

Afghanistan unter den Taliban: Frauen kämpfen in der ersten Reihe

Tageszeitung, 21 January 2022 Guest article by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the alleged Taleban arrest of two women protest organisers in Kabul and various other cases of persecution (in German).

21 Jan 2022

One technocrat from the former government is key to the Taliban’s [aid] efforts

Washington Post, 18 January 2022 Pamela Constable’s portrait of Nazir Kabiri, owner of a master’s degree in economics; founder of Afghan think the Biruni Institute; deputy minister for policy at the Finance Ministry under President Ghani; a Tajik – and one of the few high-ranking officials who remained in his position under the Taleban. On […]

18 Jan 2022

A Community Under Attack: How successive governments failed west Kabul and the Hazaras who live there

Ali Yawar Adili •

The Hazara-Shia community in west Kabul city, particularly its sprawling neighbourhood Dasht-e Barchi, has been the target of some of the city’s deadliest attacks, especially since 2016. The community has particularly been hit hard in west Kabul, but Hazaras and Shias have also been persistently targeted elsewhere in Afghanistan. While the former government promised to […]

17 Jan 2022

Afghanische Menschenrechtskommission: [Shaharzad] Akbar legt Amt nieder

Tageszeitung, 10 January 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig writes this portrait of Shaharzad Akbar who recently stepped down from her position in the chair of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (in German).

10 Jan 2022