Month: July 2026

Taliban marks fifth year in power in Afghanistan: 5 things to know

Nikkei Asia, 31 July 2026 In this explainer by the Japanese news agency, AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted in the answer to the question “Is the Taliban becoming internationally accepted?” The agency writes: Despite the fact that the Taliban are still not recognized by many countries as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, it has steadily expanded its […]

31 Jul 2026

Ingenieur sitzt seit drei Monaten in Abschiebehaft

Frankfurter Rundschau, 30 July 2026 The German daily reports about the case of an Afghan man in German deportation arrest for an unauthorised short vacation abroad, to be extradited to Taleban-ruled Afghanistan. The article quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reacting to an IOM statement saying that security in Afghanistan had improved, allowing the deportation of Afghan […]

30 Jul 2026

Abschiebeflug nach Afghanistan: Jetzt trifft es auch die Nichtstraftäter

Tageszeitung, 28 July 2026 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reports for the Berlin-based daily Germany’s sixth deportation flight to Taleban-ruled Afghanistan on this very day; it was also the first one by which a non-criminal Afghan was included. So far, deportations were limited to convicted criminals who had committed substantial crimes and individuals considered a terrorist threat. […]

28 Jul 2026

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

26 Jul 2026

[Afghanistan after the fall; Numerical and small economic growth, household poverty and exclusion of women] افغانستان پس از سقوط؛ رشد عددی و اندک اقتصاد، فقر خانوارها و حذف زنان

RFI Persian, 20 July 2026 The Persian service of French international broadcaster RFI reports AAN’s new publication about how Afghan households have fared after the regime change of 2021, “Afghanistan’s Unequal Economic Recovery.” Afghanistan Analysis Network shows that the country’s economic recovery since the Taliban came to power has been small, limited, and highly unequal. […]

20 Jul 2026

Inside Afghanistan’s Unequal Economic Recovery: How households have fared since 2021

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

Since the crash following the collapse of the Republic in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy has witnessed a modest recovery, although many households have not. In a new longitudinal study, AAN has followed a number of families across Afghanistan and over time, to better understand how the country’s economic trajectory has played out for individual households. When we first […]

20 Jul 2026

Widerstand unter Adlerschwingen: In Afghanistan entreißen erstmals bewaffnete Gegner der Taliban diesen die Kontrolle über einen Distrikt – kurzzeitig

Tageszeitung, 19 July 2026 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig summarises the events in the night to Friday, 17 July, when armed fighters of a new opposition group, the Soldiers of the Homeland (Sepahian-e Maihan) took Yaftal district in Badakhshan from the Taleban for some hours, and provides background about the group and, briefly, the state of the […]

19 Jul 2026

Taliban’s ethnic chauvinism an increasingly dangerous divide

Asia Times, 16 July 2026 AAN research ist quoted at two places in this article: Early analysis by the Afghanistan Analysts Network found the cabinet overwhelmingly Pashtun, with only token representation for Tajiks and Uzbeks, no meaningful Hazara or Shiite representation and no women. (…) An Afghanistan Analysts Network mining study shows that mining has […]

16 Jul 2026

Recalibrating International Engagement: the UN Mandate and Afghanistan’s Crossroads

Substack, 14 July 2026 A view by three former Afghan diplomats, Farid Zarif, Asila Wardak and Omar Samad, on UNAMA’s task of a “balancing act diplomacy” in aa changed international environment.

14 Jul 2026

Iran’s Turn to the East: Afghanistan and the Contest Over Eurasia’s Corridors

CACI, 13 July 2026 Very interesting analysis of the repercussions of the US-Iran war for connectivity in Eurasia and, for example, on the Iran-Afghanistan-China route. The authors conclude: Afghanistan is becoming Tehran’s overland insurance against maritime pressure, and the railway to Herat, together with the plan for Mazar-i-Sharif, anchors that link. A through bypass of the […]

13 Jul 2026

How the EU normalises the Taliban without recognising it

The Loop, 10 July 2026 In an opinion piece, Kaweh Kerami, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, writes that … the Taliban’s first EU-hosted visit to Brussels was not recognition, as the EU insists, but something politically consequential all the same: proof that repeated contact can hand an unrecognised regime […]

10 Jul 2026

What went wrong? Two AAN studies for Norway’s Afghanistan Commission

AAN Team •

In October 2024, Norway appointed a second Afghanistan Commission to evaluate the country’s efforts in Afghanistan, this time covering the period from 2015 to 2021. As part of its review, it examined Norway’s military contribution, development assistance and its efforts to support peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as the 2021 evacuation operation. As with […]

9 Jul 2026