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The Growth of Neo-radicalism: Neo-Salafism and Sectarianism

There are indications about the involvement of neo-radical – both neo-Salafist and Iranian-inspired Shia – groups in the Ashura clashes that occurred last November at Kabul University. AAN has recently reported about the events. In a follow-up article, our guest blogger Abbas Daiyar(*) argues that an increase of the activities comes in the wake of […]

25 Jan 2013 Abbas Daiyar • War and Peace

UN Torture Report: still no accountability for torture

UNAMA’s new report on the torture of ‘conflict related detainees’ makes bleak reading and not only because of the scale and weight of evidence against Afghan intelligence and the police. UNAMA reported that more than half of those interviewed had experienced torture or ill-treatment. They included children as young as 14. The UN also says […]

21 Jan 2013 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Striking at Kabul, in 2013: the attack on the traffic police HQ

Just before dawn, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) premises on the Deh Mazang roundabout in West Kabul came under attack. After a massive car bomb detonated in front of the building, an insurgent commando of five men tried to enter the traffic police headquarters. Two of them eventually made their way inside, and holed […]

21 Jan 2013 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

AAN Occasional Paper on the Pre-1979 Causes of the Afghan Conflict

For most people, it was the Soviet invasion over Christmas 1979 that put Afghanistan on the political map when, in the very last days of the 1970s, the Soviet leadership made the central Asian country the arena of the hottest conflict in the last part of the Cold War. As a result, the internationalised Afghanistan […]

19 Jan 2013 AAN • admin • Events

How It All Began: Pre-1979 Origins of Afghanistan’s Conflict

For most people, it was the Soviet invasion over Christmas 1979 that put Afghanistan on the political map when, in the very last days of the 1970s, the Soviet leadership made the central Asian country the arena of the hottest conflict in the last part of the Cold War. As a result, the internationalised Afghanistan […]

19 Jan 2013 Thomas Ruttig • Special Reports

Where Many Streets Have No Name: One for the Freedom of Speech?

Afghan journalists want to rename a street in central Kabul ‘Freedom of Speech Street’ to honour the many colleagues who have sacrificed their lives in this cause over the past ten years. Their initiative has met some resistance – not because of the content but because the street already bears the name of an independence […]

18 Jan 2013 Thomas Ruttig • Rights and Freedoms

AAN Reportage: What Sparked the Ashura Day Riots and Murder in Kabul University?

Last November, on the day of Ashura, a Muslim religious day with particular importance for Shias who mourn the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson Hussain, clashes erupted between Sunni and Shia students in the dormitory of the Kabul University. The campus was literally turned into a battlefield. One student was killed and more than a […]

17 Jan 2013 Borhan Osman • War and Peace

The Taliban in Zabul and Uruzgan / Negotiations with the Taliban

AAN’s Martine van Bijlert and Thomas Ruttig both contributed a chapter to this edited volume on the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, based on earlier publications for the New American Foundation. Click Here for more

14 Jan 2013 Thomas Ruttig • Martine van Bijlert • External publications

A New ‘Foundation Force’? The ever murkier future of Afghan Special Operations Forces

One of the outcomes of the current US-Afghan summit in Washington reported by Afghan media is the apparent emergence of a new Afghan special operations force, the “Foundation Force for Afghanistan”. Still there is no official confirmation of this. Our guest blogger Gary Owen(*) writes, however, that this would be very much in line with […]

13 Jan 2013 Gary Owen • War and Peace

The January 2013 Obama-Karzai meeting: sovereignty in exchange for immunity

The words of Presidents Karzai and Obama, who met in Washington, are now being weighed and scrutinised in an attempt to determine what they are planning for Afghanistan over the next few, crucial years. The headline news was ISAF moving to a support and advisory role sooner than planned, with phase 5 of the security […]

12 Jan 2013 Kate Clark • War and Peace