Search results

Responses to the President’s Ruling; Will the Opposition Hold?

The parliamentary stand-off is apparently nearing its end. Manawi, the head of the Independent Electoral Commission, is expected to announce a decision towards the end of the week – a responsibility that has been passed on from the Special Electoral Tribunal to the Kabul Appeals Court, back to the President, and now finally to the […]

15 Aug 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

How to Read the Presidential Ruling

On Wednesday morning, 10 August 2011, the Palace issued presidential ruling no. 3607 “Regarding the settlement of the 1389 electoral dispute”. It is a remarkably complicated and opaque legal text, which has led to a wide variety of conflicting interpretations. The confusing language and the silence on the side of the palace on what it […]

11 Aug 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

Conflict going East, conflict going on

The US-led Coalition has declared that its troops’ new strategic focus will be on eastern Afghanistan, after its claims of gains made in southern Afghanistan last year. Although the bad security situation in the East is not new, the recent emphasis on it may be mainly linked to the increased interest (and concern) of the […]

10 Aug 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

Political Insecurity and Reports of Worrying Developments

Afghan politics are fast-paced and slow at the same time; often more smoke than fire, but unpredictable enough to keep everyone on their toes and to keep the political class engaged in endless cycles of meetings. The chatter is a steady hum on the background of whatever is going on in the country. In insecure […]

9 Aug 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

Uruzgan’s New Chief of Police: Matiullah’s Dream Come True

Since the complex attack on Uruzgan on 28 July 2011, people in Tirin Kot have been jumpy. So last night, 7 August 2011, when around 9 pm shooting was heard throughout the city people feared the worst. It turned out to have been traditional congratulatory shooting in the air, saluting the appointing of Matiullah Khan […]

8 Aug 2011 Susanne Schmeidl • Political Landscape

Ten Killed in Badakhshan: One year on

A year ago today, in one of the worst attacks on humanitarian workers of the war, ten medical workers and their support staff were murdered in Badakhshan. They had just trekked across 5000m passes to one of the remotest areas of the country: the Parun valley of Nuristan to give out free eye care, dental […]

5 Aug 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Guest blog: Being a journalist in Uruzgan

Martin Gerner, a freelance correspondent in Afghanistan for German radio and national print media, has been training and mentoring Afghan journalists since 2004. One such training course took place only few weeks ago with a group of journalists from Tirinkot. The then BBC/Pajhwok stringer, Ahmad Omaid Khpalwak, had actively helped to bring the training group […]

5 Aug 2011 Martin Gerner • War and Peace

Killings keep leaders at home

The goal of the attack on Tirinkot on 31 July, said the Taleban spokesman, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, was ‘to make the government collapse.’ Those actually killed by the Taleban were not ‘the government’ but mainly civilians, including three women and the BBC/Pajhwok journalist, Ahmed Omaid Khpalwak. But the attack could easily have resulted in the […]

4 Aug 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

ALP programme might create a rude Afghan awakening

Is the new Afghan Local Police one of the new silver bullets for successful transition or just a new militia? General Petraeus who designed the programme (after a similar one in Iraq) claims the first while some media already see abuses, as signs for the latter. But until recently, reports about such ‘ALP abuses’ were […]

2 Aug 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Talibanrörelsens uppkomst och drivkrafter: en bakgrund inför Bonn II-konferensen om Afghanistan i december 2011

Ann Wilkens, FOI (Stockholm), background paper FOI-R–3243–SE, August 2011 (in Swedish) From the summary: The aim to this study is to give an in depth description of those destructive forces, inside and outside of Afghanistan, that oppose the international intervention and contend its goals. Over the last few years, the Afghan Taliban have expanded their […]

1 Aug 2011 Ann Wilkens • External publications