Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: September 2022

A girl harvests cotton in Dawlatabad District, Balkh province. The Taleban have rolled out new taxes on agricultural production. This represents a massive transfer of resources from the rural economy to the state, money which till now the Emirate has not accounted for. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 28 October 2021.

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 […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more
Head of customs for the Hairatan border crossing in Balkh province, Abdul Sattar Rashid (second left), with other Taleban on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge.
The Taleban moved swiftly to organise and regularise the collection of customs and taxes as they took power in 2021. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 27 October 2021

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 […]

Special Reports Read more

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 […]

External publications Read more

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 […]

Dossiers Read more

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 […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

„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).

AAN in the Media Read more

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).

AAN in the Media Read more

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).

AAN in the Media Read more