Month: September 2022

New AAN Special Report: “Taxing the Afghan Nation: What the Taleban’s pursuit of domestic revenues means for citizens, the economy and the state”

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

On 15 August 2021, much in Afghanistan was overturned or radically altered. The insurgents became the rulers and the old elites fled. Afghanistan’s relationship with the rest of the world ruptured and the country became poorer overnight. It also went from being a state where the administration was reliant on foreign donors and military support […]

28 Sep 2022

New AAN Special Report: “Taxing the Afghan Nation: What the Taleban’s pursuit of domestic revenues means for citizens, the economy and the state”

Kate Clark •

As insurgents, the Taleban taxed farmers, businesses and NGOs in areas under their control, using the money to fund their war effort. On taking power in August 2021, they swiftly moved to collect taxes in the whole of the country. That serious-minded pursuit of domestic revenue collection is both a practice carried over from the […]

28 Sep 2022

Afghanistan’s War Economy

Thomas Ruttig •

Maldekstra, 22 September 2022 This article was contributed by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig to a special issue of the international affairs journal Maldekstra (no 16, September 2022), published by German Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, titled “Economy in War.” His contribution looks at the two categories of profiteurs from the last Afghan war, the international military-industrial complex and […]

22 Sep 2022

Creating the ‘Idea’ of a Country: The ‘Afghanistan in World Literature’ dossier

Fabrizio Foschini •

How do foreign literary works shape attitudes towards Afghanistan and Afghans? That is the subject of this dossier which brings together AAN reports from its ‘Afghanistan in World Literature’ series. Over the years, we have written many pieces on this subject, spurred not only by a passion for everything related to Afghanistan, but also by […]

15 Sep 2022

UN Human Rights Rapporteur warns of Afghanistan’s descent into authoritarianism

Kate Clark •

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan has released his first report to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The situation in the country has deteriorated, Richard Bennett said, “to the point where the human rights crisis matches Afghanistan’s humanitarian and financial crises.” He holds the Taleban responsible for the worsening of […]

10 Sep 2022

„Afghanistan: Das Desaster der westlichen Intervention – Was tun?“

Debatte zu Dritt, 7 September 2022 In this podcast hosted by Swiss ex-diplomat Tim Guldimann, award-winning German journalist Katrin Eigendorf and AAN’s Thomas Ruttig debate the West’s Afghanistan debacle in mid-2021 and what ld to it (in German).

7 Sep 2022

Detonation unter der Weste: Anschlag in Afghanistan

Tageszeitung, 2 September 2022 Article by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the killing, by a suicide bomber, of prominent Herato pro-Taleban cleric, Maulawi Mujib-ul-Rahman Ansari (in German).

2 Sep 2022

Monsun flutet Afghanistan

Tageszeitung, 1 September 2022 Article by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in the Berlin daily reporting the damage by recent flooding in large parts of Afghanistan and the international discussion whether or how to aid Afghanistan under the Taleban (in German).

1 Sep 2022