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The Survival of the Private Security Companies

“As we move towards the transition process, all foreign parallel functions and institutions including private security firms, the PRTs, existence of the militias, detention of Afghan citizens by foreign forces and arbitrary house searches must stop immediately.” – Karzai’s speech on 23 March 2011, announcing the first phase of the Enteqal process. There are a […]

27 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

White mountains, White City

On his first day in Kabul again after some time in Europe, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig finds spring scents and dust on the tongue in the Afghan capital, and the two universes – that of Afghans and that of the expat community – fully intact: one picknicking, the other one in ‘White City’ lock-down. Back to […]

26 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

The Enteqal Seven (1): A Nowruz chakar to Bamian

Spring is here again. With the first warmth, AAN staff starts its occasional migration to higher pastures, Bamian in this case. The Nowruz holidays offer a much appreciated opportunity (and the announcement of Bamian as one of the first seven areas where Afghan security forces will take over from July onwards) to do so without […]

25 Mar 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

It Needs Two to Talk: Reading the Century Foundation report

Today, the US-based Century Foundation (TCF) came out with a comprehensive report containing a set of proposals on ‘Negotiating Peace’ in Afghanistan. It is not the first – and won’t be the last – paper of this kind but, with Brahimi and Pickering as co-chairs of this Task Force and Vendrell, Guehenno and others on […]

23 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Talking about peace talks; a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions

For a while now I have been feeling uneasy over the direction the debate on ‘talking to the Taleban’ is taking. The more I listen to conversation about reaching some kind of settlement, the more I feel as if I am wading into a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions, with a potentially dangerous level of […]

22 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

Guest Blog: Afghanistan After 2014 – Thinking about Scenarios

While much of current international attention is focussed on the time from now to 2014, with the enteqal (handover) process moving into the focus – President Karzai just had defined the first seven areas of security responsibility affair, namely three full provinces and four other provincial capitals – in particular many Afghans look at the […]

21 Mar 2011 Almut Wieland-Karimi • Political Landscape

Museums and Massacres

A new exhibition at the Kabul Museum has opened with the display of some exquisitely beautiful exhibits, newly found at the archaeological dig which is preceding the development of the Mes-e Ainak copper mine in Logar. Ambassadors, generals and ministers gathered with curators and archaeologists for the opening and an announcement that a new Afghan […]

21 Mar 2011 Kate Clark • Context and Culture

Pashtunwali – tribal life and behaviour among the Pashtuns

‘Doing Pashto: Pashtunwali as the ideal of honourable behaviour and tribal life among the Pashtuns’ – this new thematic report by Lutz Rzehak provides an overview about the way of life of the Pashtuns, often called Pashtunwali. The term features prominently when civilian and military actors in Afghanistan discuss ways of engaging the civilian population […]

21 Mar 2011 Lutz Rzehak • Special Reports

Destruction is Rebuilding, or: Fare thee well, population-centric COIN

Words and deeds differ more and more in the US strategy in Afghanistan. A blogger made AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig think about her question ‘Is This What Population-centric Counterinsurgency Looks Like?’, remember some reports he read recently and conclude that the answer is ‘no’. Yesterday, we added a blogdescribing – and carrying a photo of […]

18 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Guest Blog: Modernisation Stress – Kabul and Mazar Revisited

During his tenth trip to Afghanistan since 2003 dedicated to research on micro-social development and general political perceptions, after an interval of two and a half years, our guest blogger Michael Daxner(*) was ‘little surprised at the first glance – but at a closer look, much has changed’. Glimpses on social stratification, discussions about federalism, […]

16 Mar 2011 Michael Daxner • Economy, Development, Environment