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The Shadows of ‘Islamic State’ in Afghanistan: What threat does it hold?

The Islamic State (IS) group, also known by an Arabic acronym, Daesh, has gained a toehold in Afghanistan, although with the loss in a drone strike of its most prominent and recently appointed commander, Rauf Khadem, that toehold is looking precarious. Still, the situation has moved on from when AAN last reported on IS in […]

12 Feb 2015 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

Messages in Chalk: ‘Islamic State’ haunting Afghanistan?

Rumours of the presence of Islamic State (IS) elements in Afghanistan have repeatedly made it into the media over recent months, sparking public debate and adding to the anxiety about what course the insurgency might take. AAN researcher Borhan Osman says that IS has support among limited numbers of Afghan radical youth – although even […]

17 Nov 2014 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’: How it began and where it stands now in Nangarhar

The Islamic State’s local franchise in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the TUTAP protests in Kabul on 23 July 2016. The attack killed more than 80 people and injured over 230 others in Deh Mazang Square in western Kabul. The target of […]

27 Jul 2016 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

Carnage in Ghor: Was Islamic State the perpetrator or was it falsely accused? 

The Islamic State, holed up in a few districts in eastern Afghanistan, has suddenly popped up in a faraway western province, Ghor – at least according to provincial officials. They blamed IS for the massacre in October 2016 of more than 30 civilians. Digging deeper into the incident, AAN’s Borhan Osman found that the IS […]

23 Nov 2016 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

Policing Public Morality: Debates on promoting virtue and preventing vice in the Taleban’s second Emirate

The Taleban’s ‘religious police’ are back in force, leaving many Afghans fearing a return to the notorious brutalities of the Taleban’s 1990s Amr bil-Maruf ministry. Yet, two decades on, argues guest author Sabawoon Samim* (with input from Roxanna Shapour), Taleban views on the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice have evolved, as has Afghan […]

15 Jun 2022 Sabawoon Samim • Rights and Freedoms

Delaying Justice? The ICC’s war crimes investigation in limbo over who represents Afghanistan

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have still not made a decision to authorise, or not, the resumption of the court’s war crimes investigation in Afghanistan, ten months after the ICC Prosecutor urged them to expedite their approval. It means that, 16 years after the ICC began to look into Afghanistan, it has still yet to […]

28 Jul 2022 Ehsan Qaane • Rights and Freedoms

Regime Change, Economic Decline and No Legal Protection: What has happened to the Afghan media?

The Taleban takeover of Afghanistan delivered a devastating blow to one of the Republic’s few achievements – freedom of expression and a vibrant media sector. Since the fall of the Republic, nearly half of Afghanistan’s media outlets have closed and thousands of Afghan journalists and media workers have either left the country, lost their jobs, […]

7 Mar 2022 Ehsan Qaane • Rights and Freedoms

Warlords, Religious Leaders, Insurgents: Three external publications

  For the London-based Tony Blair Faith Foundation, Thomas Ruttig analysed the relationship between Islamic religion and politics in Afghanistan through the phases of internal conflict over modernisation and armed conflict, starting with the 1970s. He starts with the analysis that Afghan society, before the Soviet occupation, was religiously conservative, with liberal urban enclaves and […]

7 Oct 2014 Thomas Ruttig • External publications

Casting a Very Wide Net: Did Ghani just authorise interning Afghans without trial?

A recent decree by President Ghani on how to deal with terrorist crimes has introduced the prospect of detaining, without trial, Afghans (and foreigners in Afghanistan) suspected of planning acts of terrorism. The relevant article allows the Afghan authorities to detain suspects indefinitely on very little evidence and with little or no opportunity to defend […]

21 Jan 2016 Kate Clark • Lenny Linke • Rights and Freedoms

Translation of the biographies of the Taleban negotiation team

AAN’s translation of the biographies of the Taleban negotiation team members from the original Dari published by the Taleban here, on 12 September 2020, the same day intra-Afghan negotiations began in Doha. AAN has published biographies of the team, drawing on a wide range of sources, here. Honourable Sheikh Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Mawlawi Sheikh Abdul Hakim, son […]

21 Sep 2020 AAN • Peace process