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Ahmad Wali Karzai, the node of the southern networks, killed

In the long line of assassinations carried out by all sides in the war since 2001, Ahmad Wali Karzai is surely the most powerful man yet to be killed. Formally, his powers were limited to being the head of Kandahar’s provincial council, an elected body. Informally, he was the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, […]

12 Jul 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Parliament Crisis: Impeachment and Other Threats

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) which had seen its final result for the 18 September election undermined by series of manoeuvres culminating in the establishment of the Special Election Court, has re-entered the arena. Trying to solve the months-long parliamentary crisis, it has submitted a proposal that intends to cut through the Gordian knot – […]

11 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

German Government Reviews Afghan ‘Progress’

The online part of German magazine Spiegel comments on the Berlin government’s last update on the situation in Afghanistan* and says that it highlights the ‘open contradictions’ in Afghanistan’s ‘progress’. The magazine quotes German AfPak special envoy Michael Steiner as saying that he wants to give an ‘unvarnished picture’ and that he sees both ‘light […]

11 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Fire at the Durand Line

Since mid-June, warming relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have run into serious trouble again. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan (and ISAF) of doing nothing to stop militants from attacking Pakistani border posts and villages, Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of shelling villages in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, killing civilians and causing hundreds of families to flee. AAN Advisory Board […]

10 Jul 2011 Ann Wilkens • Regional Relations

Guest Blog: ‘What are the Taleban supposed to do if they won?’

Berlin daily die tageszeitung (taz) met former Taleban ambassador Mulla Abdul Salam Za‘if and Muhammad Massum Stanakzai, head of the APRP secretariat, together and asked them about negotiations, red lines, preconditions and Afghanistan’s future. It was ‘as if the war already was over’, as taz interviewer Sven Hansen* remarked. taz: Mr Stanekzai and Mullah Za‘if, why […]

9 Jul 2011 Sven Hansen • War and Peace

Bonn 2: A Top-down Approach to Civil Society Again

In November 2009, three months before the London Conference on Afghanistan, AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig wrote a blog under the title ‘A meaningful Afghanistan conference needs civil society involvement’. Re-reading it five months before the next one in the long series of Afghanistan conferences*, in Bonn again, he thought he can simply re-post it: […]

8 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Guest Blog: Ghori Cement – A loss-making goldmine

Under pressure to repay his loans to Kabul Bank, the president’s brother, Mahmud Karzai, has sold his shares in the Afghan Investment Company. This could open a new future for the country’s biggest cement factory, Ghori Cement in Baghlan, that has so far been plagued by nepotism, reports Mir Sediq Zaliq*, an Afghan journalist working […]

7 Jul 2011 Mir Sediq Zaliq • Economy, Development, Environment

Najib Who? Or: A Faux-pas Transition Press Release

Press releases of NATO and ISAF in Kabul are not known for their literary quality. Mostly, they inform matter-of-factually about successes of the Western troops and political progress achieved and often are full of euphemistic language, military neologisms and acronyms. Not different those of DVIDS, the ISAF Joint Command’s Defence Video & Imagery Distribution System. […]

6 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

6 July 2011 AAN’s Kate Clark in the Frontline Club

On 6 July, AAN’s Kate Clark will be on the panel of the prestigious Frontline Club in London discussing ‘Kill/Capture missions in Afghanistan’. Her AAN report on a bungled ‘intelligence-driven’ US Special Forces operation 2010 in Takhar province in Northern Afghanistan has made some waves. Following the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Frontline […]

5 Jul 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Looking at the Azra Hospital Attack (amended)

The suicide car-bomb attack that destroyed the civilian hospital of Logar’s eastern-most district Azra on 25 June was terrible even for Afghan standards, with now [amended: 29] registered dead and 53 wounded. Amongst the victims were reportedly 15 children waiting for immunisation as well as five toddlers; the 10-bed maternity ward completely destroyed. But the […]

5 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace