Month: October 2026

Nine Months Under the Emirate: One woman’s pregnancy in Kabul

Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour •

Pregnancy is often described as a time of joy, anticipation and preparation, but for many women in Afghanistan, getting through those nine months can feel like an obstacle course. In this instalment of the Daily Hustle, AAN’s Hamid Pakteen speaks to Zarghuna, a 38-year-old mother in Kabul, about her latest pregnancy. With her husband stranded […]

7 Oct 2026

He Confessed to an Afghanistan War Murder. The U.S. Military Promptly Closed the Case. 

The Intercept, 7 October 2026 In the spring of 2023, (…) an Army veteran of the Afghanistan War walked into the (…) police headquarters in Banning, California […] and acknowledged, according to exclusive criminal investigation documents obtained by The Intercept, that he killed an unarmed man and wounded a woman (…) in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River […]

7 Oct 2026

Russia courts the Taliban without dropping Pakistan

Asia Times, 5 October 2026 A very interesting and balanced analysis of the Russia-Pakistan-Taleban triangle, looking at 1) Russia’s invitation to the Taleban to send observers to a military exercise – in which also Pakistani troops participated; 2) reports, or rather rumours (as the author says), that the Taleban are buying drones and other weapons […]

5 Oct 2026

Armenian community grieving ‘mentor’ and ‘family’ Benon Sevan [former UN special rep for Afghanistan]

Cyprus Mail, 5 October 2026 In April 1988, he was appointed director and senior political advisor to the representative of the secretary-general on the settlement of the situation relating to Afghanistan. In January 1990, he was also asked to serve as the secretary-general’s representative on the implementation of the Geneva Agreements on Afghanistan. In January […]

5 Oct 2026

A Parallel Education System: The Taliban’s madrasa expansion and its implications for gender, society and regional security

Timor Sharan •

In June 2026, HAMRAH Network published Taliban Madrasas: Ideological Consolidation, Gender Persecution and Afghanistan’s Future Stability, which documented the scale of the Taliban’s madrasa expansion. Drawing on ground-level fieldwork conducted in Kandahar and Bamyan provinces between March and May 2026 and interviews with more than 34 individuals with direct knowledge of the education sector, the report […]

5 Oct 2026

Afghanistan: 25 Years Since the US-Led Invasion [compilations of HRW reports]

Human Rights Watch, 5 October 2026 25 years since the latest war in Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001, the United States and coalition countries have yet to provide genuine justice or redress for war crimes and other grave abuses, Human Rights Watch said today, issuing a timeline of its reporting of the conflict.  After Al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks on the […]

5 Oct 2026

Borrowing from the Future: How an Afghan trader sank deeper into debt

Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour •

For many small traders, buying goods on credit is part of doing business. It allows them to trade even if they do not have the money to pay for stock up front. However, that also leaves them vulnerable when deals go wrong, creditors demand repayment or the economy takes a downturn. Borrowing more money to […]

1 Oct 2026

Pakistan eskaliert wieder am Hindukusch

Tageszeitung, 1 October 2026 In the Berlin-based daily, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reports Pakistan’s latest airstrikes on Afghanistan and summarises reports that, according to both Taleban and Afghan opposition sources, Pakistan supported – tacitly, at least – an incursion of a group of fighters of the armed anti-Taleban group, the AFF, from Pakistani soil into Nuristan […]

1 Oct 2026