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New Trouble in the Jombesh: Dostum reasserts leadership

The official leader of Jombesh party has been relieved of his post, along with eight other members of the party’s political committee. The sacked chairman, Sayed Nurullah Sadat, has cried foul, saying he could only be removed by a party congress and accusing the party’s founder, General Dostum, of being behind his dismissal. This looks […]

17 Feb 2013 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Allen, Obama and Orwell: Continuing War is Victory

President Obama in his State of the Union address announced what to many looks like an accelerated drawdown of US troops with half out of Afghanistan by this time next year. ‘We can say with confidence,’ Obama said, ‘that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan and achieve our objective of defeating the core of […]

13 Feb 2013 Kate Clark • War and Peace

General Allen Leaves with an Improved Report Card on Civilian Casualties and Torture

Today, 10 February 2012, the commander of ISAF and US forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, leaves after a year and a half in the job. ‘When I got here,’ he told The New York Times, ‘I measured success in how well and how often we were fighting. Today, it’s a very different environment. The […]

10 Feb 2013 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Ustad Atta for President? The ‘Northern Front’ Summit and other Pre-Election Manoeuvres

Seven months before candidate registration starts this year for the 2014 presidential election(1) and 15 months before the incumbent has to leave his position for good, positioning for the post-Hamed Karzai period has picked up. Five leaders of non-Pashtun factions or movements, mainly former mujahedin, have decided to look for a joint candidate who might […]

6 Feb 2013 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Ambiguous about Torture: Zero Dark Thirty, the Movie

Oscar-winning film director, Kathryn Bigelow’s new film Zero Dark Thirty tells the story of the search for and eventual killing of Osama Bin Laden. The film has proved controversial – praised by some for its cool realism, it has also been castigated for inaccuracies. Above all, though, it has been accused of justifying torture. AAN […]

5 Feb 2013 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Ulama conference aimed at outlawing suicide attacks: victim of a blame game (amended)

As the leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Britain meet in London today to discuss the peace process, AAN looks at an earlier plan to present a common Pakistan/Afghan face against the Taleban over the issue of suicide attacks. In November, Islamabad and Kabul announced they would be holding an ulama conference in January in which […]

4 Feb 2013 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

‘Talibanistan’, new book with AAN contributors, gets excellent review

‘Talibanistan: Negotiating the borders between terror, politics, and religion’, edited by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, brings together a number of (updated) policy papers written for the New America Foundation’s (NAF) ‘The Battle for Afghanistan’ and ‘The Battle for Pakistan’ since 2010. The NAF calls the authors ‘an unparalleled group of experts offer a nuanced […]

31 Jan 2013 AAN • admin • Events

Budget Through, Impeachments Pending: Wolesi Jirga Went into Winter Recess

At the third go, the Lower House of parliament finally approved the government’s general budget for the Afghan year 1392 (March 2012 to March 2013) on 20 January 2013. The so-called qatia report – the final account for the previous fiscal year – however, revealed that many ministries had again failed to spend a significant […]

31 Jan 2013 Obaid Ali • Economy, Development, Environment

Eagle’s Summit Revisited: AAN report about Decision-Making in the Kajaki Dam Project

In the summer of 2008, in what was described as the biggest British-led ‘route clearance operation’ since World War II, nearly 5000 ISAF and Afghan troops transported eight components of a hydroelectric turbine, each weighing 20 to 30 tonne, from Kandahar Air Field to the Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province – in the face of […]

30 Jan 2013 Noah Arjomand • Special Reports

30-31 January 2013, Barcelona: AAN speakers at Conference on Afghanistan Legacy

The international intervention in Afghanistan started in October 2001. The aim was not only to bring down the Taleban regime, but to capture Osama Ben Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, and to save women from the fundamentalists. During more than a decade of international presence, billions of dollars have been invested in Afghanistan and nearly […]

28 Jan 2013 AAN • admin • Events