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“The US’s Greatest Strategic Failure”: Steve Coll on the CIA and the ISI

“Directorate S” is Steve Coll’s second major study of the CIA’s role in recent Afghan wars. While “Ghost Wars” chronicled the years 1979-2001, “Directorate S” – referring to a subdivision of Pakistan’s inter-services intelligence directorate that covers Afghanistan – takes up the story in 2001 and follows it through to 2016. AAN Advisory Board member […]

23 Jul 2018 Ann Wilkens • Regional Relations

Enemy Number One: How the Taleban deal with the ALP and uprising groups

It is one of the few ‘truths’ of the Afghan insurgency that the Taleban hate arbaki– their term for locally-recruited defence forces, primarily the Afghan Local Police and uprising groups.These forces have always been a mixed bag, with some abusing the local population or captured by ethnic, factional or criminal interests. However, especially where they […]

19 Jul 2018 Borhan Osman • Kate Clark • War and Peace

UNAMA Mid-Year Report on Civilian Casualties: Highest number of deaths on record

UNAMA has released its mid-year assessment of the harm done to civilians in the Afghan conflict. It found that more civilians were killed in the first six months of 2018 than in any year since 2009 when UNAMA started systematic monitoring. This was despite the Eid ul-Fitr ceasefire, which all parties to the conflict apart […]

15 Jul 2018 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Graft and Remilitarisation: A look back at efforts to disarm, demobilise, reconcile and reintegrate

Even before the Eid truce suddenly made a peace process in Afghanistan imaginable, international civilian and military circles were wondering what they could do to support one. The government, the High Peace Council (HPC) and donors are also currently negotiating future funding for the HPC. It seems a good moment, says AAN’s Kate Clark, to […]

12 Jul 2018 Kate Clark • War and Peace

AAN’s Doris Buddenberg and Jelena Bjelica on opium in Afghanistan – July 2018. Episode: 1

Member of AAN’s advisory board and also, the Former Resident Representative of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Afghanistan Doris Buddenberg and AAN’s Jelena who also worked with the UNODC between 2010-14. Together they discuss the role on opium in Afghanistan.

9 Jul 2018 AAN Guests • Podcasts

The Afghanistan Election Conundrum (9): The 2010 Ghazni spectre rears its head again

Protests continue in front of the Independent Election Commission’s office in Ghazni, though it was able to reopen on 27 June following a 63-day sit-in protest at its gates that shut it down, stymying election preparations throughout the province. This comes despite the IEC’s legally problematic about-face to split Ghazni province’s electoral constituencies for the […]

5 Jul 2018 Ali Yawar Adili • Political Landscape

The Eid Ceasefire: What did (some of the) people think?

Coverage of the Eid ceasefire mainly focussed on the most spectacular consequence, the mass fraternisation between combatants. AAN researchers wanted to try to understand what civilians thought about the truce and what sort of Eid holiday they had enjoyed – or not. We interviewed ten Afghans, four women and six men, to try to find […]

29 Jun 2018 AAN Team • Context and Culture

AAN’s Francesc Vendrell and Thomas Ruttig on reaching out to Taliban in 2000 – June 2018. Episode: 2

AAN’s co-director Kate Clark in discussion with Chairman of AAN’s advisory board and also, the Former UN and EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell and AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig. Both Francesc and Thomas were part of the UN mission before 9/11 and they share their experience of reaching out to Taliban for peace talks.  

28 Jun 2018 AAN Guests • Podcasts

Understanding Hurdles to Afghan Peace Talks: Are the Taleban a political party?

Following his February 2018 offer of peace talks to the Taleban, President Ashraf Ghani proposed that they run as a political party in the upcoming elections. In 2011, his predecessor, Hamed Karzai, had offered something different, that the government would support the Taleban’s recognition by the United Nations Security Council as a “party to the […]

27 Jun 2018 Khalilullah Safi • Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Mass Deportations of Afghans from Turkey: Thousands of migrants sent back in a deportation drive

In a recent television appearance, the Turkish Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, said that 15,000 Afghans have been sent back home from Turkey. While it is likely that this number has been exaggerated, there is no doubt that in April and May of 2018, thousands of Afghan migrants were sent back on charter flights from Turkey […]

21 Jun 2018 Amy Pitonak • Migration