Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

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One Land, Two Rules (1): Service delivery in insurgent-affected areas, an introduction

The Taleban today control or influence whole swathes of Afghanistan. Estimates of exactly how much vary, but in the vast majority of Afghanistan’s provinces, control is split between government and insurgency. What that means for local people in terms of services usually provided by a state is the subject of a new research project by […]

Kate Clark • Jelena Bjelica • Economy, Development, Environment

Getting to the Steering Wheel: President Ghani’s new set of peace proposals

President Ashraf Ghani updated peace plan, presented at the Geneva Conference on Afghanistan on 28 November, the 13th international Afghanistan conference since 2001, built on the February 2018 Kabul Process proposals. Ghani foresees a five-phase approach to consultations and five years of implementation. At the same time, these proposals represent an attempt to reassert the Afghan government’s […]

Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Taleban Attacks on Khas Uruzgan, Jaghori and Malestan (II): A new and violent push into Hazara areas

The Taleban attacks on Hazara areas in Uruzgan and Ghazni were unprecedented in their reach and led to massive displacement. The attacks indicated a clear shift in the Taleban’s behaviour towards the Hazara areas, stimulating various hypotheses about their motives. In this second part of a series of two dispatches, AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili and […]

Ali Yawar Adili • Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

Taleban Attacks on Khas Uruzgan, Jaghori and Malestan (I): A new and violent push into Hazara areas

In late October 2018, the Taleban pushed deeper into Hazara areas than they had ever done before. They first pursued Hakim Shujai, a notorious former Afghan Local Police (ALP) commander, into Malestan, then launched an assault on the district of Jaghori and thereafter attacked Malestan’s district centre, almost resulting in its collapse. The attacks were […]

Ali Yawar Adili • Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

The Geneva Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan: An agenda for peace and development?

The Afghan Government and United Nations will co-host the Geneva ministerial conference on 28 November 2018. This is the 13th high-level international conference on Afghanistan since 2001. The focus of the conference will be peace efforts and development, but it will also be an opportunity to assess the Afghan government’s reform efforts and reconfirm commitments made […]

AAN Team • International Engagement

The 2018 Election Observed (5) in Nuristan: Disfranchisement and lack of data

Organising elections in Nuristan, one of the most remote, under-served and unknown provinces, presents a severe challenge. Most villages are far from their nearest district centre and all of the districts are under some degree of Taleban control or influence. In two districts – Mandol and Du-Ab – people were fully deprived of their right […]

Thomas Ruttig • Jelena Bjelica • Obaid Ali • Political Landscape

Voters queue at Ali Baba High School in the provincial capital Parun, Paktika. Photo: Fazal Muzhary, October 2018.

The 2018 Election Observed (4) in Paktika: Pre-election fraud and relatively peaceful polling

Where Paktika has been famous for ballot stuffing and mass proxy voting in previous elections, locals claim that this election was very different. A softer Taleban stance and a new slate of candidates, they say, allowed for more extensive campaigning. And the new electoral measures prevented rigging which, as a result, the electorate – including […]

Fazl Rahman Muzhary • Political Landscape

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