Search results

Sal-e nau mubarak / Neway kal mubarak sha (amended)

The AAN Management Board wishes in particular all Afghan AAN team members, contributors, readers as well as all friends and partners a happy and more peaceful new year 1390. Let us all hope that the festival itself can be celebrated without disturbances (see text below) and continue to work together for peace and true reconciliation. […]

14 Mar 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Discussing the Taleban in the Age of Chatham House Rules

It is not easy to report on current events in our times when most conferences, workshops or seminars on Afghanistan with an interesting audience, including people with inside information, are held under Chatham House Rules. For those unfamiliar with this term: It means that you, as participant of such a meeting, can quote what was […]

11 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Reality off the records: Afghan civilian casualties and NATO’s narrative

Facts from the latest UN and AIHRC report: 2,777 Afghan civilians have been killed in 2010 – these are more than ever before since the US-led intervention started in 2001 and 15 per cent more than in 2009. Insurgents were held responsible for 75 per cent of these casualties, Afghan government and Western forces for […]

9 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Stories people tell (2): Bagram prison; not a single good day

There are so many stories of people who get caught up in the nightly operations by American and Afghan forces. In the search for ‘kill & capture’ targets the net is cast wide: once a door is kicked in all males in a household are usually taken for interrogation. And it is then anyone’s guess […]

9 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Rights and Freedoms

Sherzai Staying or Leaving? A Nangrahar Tug-of-War

Gul Agha Sherzai may well be satisfied with the ‘gold medal’ he has been awarded on Sunday by a local labour organization for his services. It could represent the final achievement of his long-lasting tenure as governor of Nangrahar province. After almost six years, many local powerbrokers in Eastern Afghanistan, and maybe himself too, seem […]

8 Mar 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

When the police goes local; more on the Baghlan ALP

AAN returns to the story of the local police (ALP) of Baghlan and particularly the group of Hezb-e Islami fighters who, supported by the US Special Forces, had reconciled and become local police in summer 2010, and were decimated in a Taleban attack in September. Some locals have accused this group of committing crimes. Others […]

4 Mar 2011 Gran Hewad • Political Landscape

Guest Blog: Why the Buddhas of Bamian were destroyed

It would have been possible to save the Bamian Buddhas from destruction. But it was not an important enough issue for the western powers to intervene over. And the outsiders who did consider the Buddhas important were not prepared to contemplate the kind of intervention that might have worked. The Buddhas were abandoned, argues our […]

2 Mar 2011 Michael Semple • Context and Culture

Stories people tell (1): An attempted land grab, a fabricated case and an expensive release

There is much talk about corruption. How it undermines the government and erodes trust. How it weakens all efforts towards reform. How it makes people’s lives more complicated and miserable than they already are. But it is only when you are confronted with the wearying detail of what people have to go through, just to […]

2 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

‘Zoom In and You’ll See the Faces of Taleban’

Michael Yon travelled to Uruzgan to see what he could see. He is by his own description on “a long tour of Afghanistan” to discover what is going on in places where international forces have fought and died. Not a bad idea. These places are indeed “(n)ames that mean almost nothing to most people, but […]

1 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

The Destruction of the Bamian Buddhas (2)

28 February 2000: The Taleban want to destroy all non-Islamic images of human beings in Afghanistan as ‘idols’. With this decision, they threaten the rich cultural heritage of their country. International experts react with horror. A contemporary article by Thomas Ruttig. The Quran bans all displays of human images because Allah – as the God […]

28 Feb 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture