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The Abbottabad Files: ‘Guests’ and ‘brothers’ at the AfPak border

Just around the first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by US Special Operations Forces, the US government decided to release 17 al-Qaeda documents(1) that were found in his last refuge in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. 17 out of 6,000 seized documents is not much, and it is open how representative this selection is […]

8 May 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Regional Relations

A young leader lost: Sebghatullah Sanjar

Sebghatullah Sanjar, leader of Afghanistan’s Republican Party, an advisor to President Karzai, an ambitious politician of a younger, democratically leaning generation and a good friend, lost his life in a traffic accident in Kabul on Saturday. Thomas Ruttig, a Senior Analyst and Co-Director at AAN, first met Sanjar in 2000 when he was working with […]

6 May 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Obama’s visit in ‘pre-dawn darkness’

President Obama has visited Afghanistan under cover of darkness, signed a ten year strategic partnership agreement, spoken to the American – although not the Afghan – people from Bagram, claimed near victory over al-Qaida and the Taleban, said a new day was dawning for Afghanistan and left. The Taleban, meanwhile, tried to pretend the visit […]

3 May 2012 Kate Clark • International Engagement

May 2012: ‘Under the Drones’ – New book with AAN participation

Titled ’Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands’ and edited by Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews, the book contains chapters about a broad spectrum of issues, both political and ethnographic, that go back to a seminar held at Stanford University in late 2009. I asked a mullah, what do you think Paradise is […]

30 Apr 2012 AAN • admin • Events

How Tribal Are the Taliban?

Thomas Ruttig, in ’Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands’, Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews, eds, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) and London, 2012. The book contains chapters about a broad spectrum of issues, both political and ethnographic, that go back to a seminar held at Stanford University in late 2009: James […]

28 Apr 2012 Thomas Ruttig • External publications

Flash from the Past: Power play before the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga

Ten years ago, Afghans were preparing for the Emergency Loya Jirga (ELJ) with high hopes. The chairman of its preparatory commission had dubbed it the ‘Peace and Democracy Loya Jirga’(1), reflecting the aspirations of a majority of Afghans. But the country was already in the grips of political posturing. There were attempts to prevent the […]

27 Apr 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

The second line of talks: Hezb-e Islami in Kabul

With the suspension of talks in Qatar and the spike in security incidents across the country, the latter part of the mooted “fight and talk” equation looks pretty lopsided this year as far as the Taleban goes. But meanwhile, dialogue between the second largest insurgent group ‘Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin’ (HIG) (1) and the Afghan government […]

26 Apr 2012 Gran Hewad • War and Peace

Likely a legal act of war: Death of an Afghan journalist

An investigation into the fatal shooting of an Afghan journalist by a US soldier in July 2011 has raised critical questions about the safety of local reporters working in the field, and the need for greater honesty by ISAF when operations go wrong, according to a new report by Kate Clark, a senior analyst at […]

25 Apr 2012 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Death of an Uruzgan journalist: Command Errors and Collateral Damage

An investigation into the fatal shooting of an Afghan journalist by a US soldier raises critical questions about the safety of local reporters working in the field, and the need for greater honesty by ISAF when operations go wrong, according to a new report by AAN’s senior analyst, Kate Clark. Omaid Khpulwak was killed at […]

25 Apr 2012 Kate Clark • Special Reports

In Kabul’s Shadow: the attacks in the provinces on 15-16 April

The attacks that took place a week ago in Kabul received more than their fair share of media coverage. The same thing cannot be said for the parallel attacks launched by insurgents simultaneously in three other provincial capitals. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini and Obaid Ali look into the attacks in Nangrahar, Paktia and Logar, to try […]

24 Apr 2012 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace