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A Delicate Balance: The regional puzzle surrounding Pakistan’s decision to stay out of Yemen

Power relations and cooperation patterns are changing around Afghanistan. Its two most intrusive neighbours, Pakistan and Iran, are both at a stage where long-set behaviour seems to be tilting in different directions, with linkages to China (in the case of Pakistan) and the USA (in the case of Iran). At the same time, Pakistan and […]

25 May 2015 Ann Wilkens • Sudhansu Verma • Regional Relations

Thematic Dossier IX: Birds in Afghanistan

It had started out as a grey, rainy week in Kabul – just perfect for birdwatchers. Birds flying north, sometimes thousands of kilometres on their spring migrations, are more likely to land in the green trees of the Afghan capital when the weather is bad. This week, AAN’s Kate Clark has been woken by the […]

23 May 2015 AAN Team • Dossiers

Police Treated With Kid Gloves: The many flaws of the Farkhunda trial

An Afghan court has found 11 policemen guilty of dereliction of duty for failing to prevent the murder of religious student Farkhunda by a mob in the centre of Kabul on 19 March 2015. They were all sentenced to one year, the absolute minimum, which means also they may not have to go to jail […]

21 May 2015 Ehsan Qaane • Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

The Park Palace Attack: More losses for Afghanistan (updated with a list of the dead)

The Taleban attack on a Kabul guesthouse which killed 15 people (not 14, as earlier reports said) on 13 May 2015 was aimed, the Taleban claimed, at “invaders”, specifically an “important meeting” of “important people from many invading countries, especially Americans.” In this update of our earlier dispatch, AAN’s Kate Clark identifies all the dead: […]

14 May 2015 Kate Clark • War and Peace

A Half-Solution: Provincial Councils get oversight authority back – for the time being

Instead of being resolved, the long power struggle between parliament and the Provincial Councils (PC) about how much and what kind of authority the councils would have has entered a new round in 2015 – with no end in sight. In 2014, under the previous president, a new law was designed to solve this issue. […]

12 May 2015 Ehsan Qaane • Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on Recent Fighting in Kuduz – May, 2015

AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on MDR Info Radio on recent fighting in Kuduz.

9 May 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Podcasts

Covering for Each Other in Zanabad: The defiant widows of the hill

On top of a hill in Kabul’s southeast is a unique community. It is locally known as Zanabad (“Women’s Town”) and has survived all turmoil of the last decades. A group of widows started building homes there for themselves as far back as the 1990s. Initially, the people of the neighbouring communities looked down on […]

7 May 2015 Naheed Esar Malikzay • Rights and Freedoms

Two new external publications: The Afghan conflict, the Afghan civil society

1 – An anthology of articles about the Afghan conflict (in German): „The Great Unrest: Afghanistan and its neighbours” is the title of an anthology of articles (all in German) that has been published today by Edition Le Monde diplomatique in cooperation with Berlin daily Tageszeitung (taz). It includes articles that have been published in […]

5 May 2015 Thomas Ruttig • External publications

Thematic Dossier VIII: The evolution of insecurity in Kunduz

In the last week, the Taleban launched their second large-scale assault on Kunduz in six months and came close to taking the provincial capital, Kunduz City, before being pushed back by Afghan National Security Forces. For the Taleban, Kunduz is probably the key province in the north, the last to be left in 2001 and […]

3 May 2015 AAN Team • Dossiers

ANSF Wrong-Footed: The Taleban offensive in Kunduz

The Taleban’s first major onslaught in their ‘spring offensive’ this year took the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) by surprise. But after a few days, they were able to react and push the insurgents back in some areas while the latter held their ground in others. Although the ANSF kept control over Kunduz city and […]

3 May 2015 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

The Killing of Farkhunda (2): Mullahs, feminists and a gap in the debate

From ultra-conservative Salafis to secular-minded feminists, an astonishingly diverse range of voices have found their heroine in Farkhunda, the young woman who was lynched by a mob in Kabul on 19 March 2015. She has become the rare victim of violence to be almost unanimously called a shahid, a martyr. The consensus on her status, however, […]

29 Apr 2015 Borhan Osman • Rights and Freedoms

The Killing of Farkhunda (1): The physical environment and the social types party to her murder

40 days after the violent killing of Farkhunda, supporters gathered on Monday, 27 April 2015, to mourn and protest her death. Afghan public opinion has now reached a broad consensus over the unprecedented gravity of this murder. Yet, many questions remain as to what triggered the killing and how it was possible for such a […]

29 Apr 2015 Fabrizio Foschini • Naheed Esar Malikzay • Rights and Freedoms

Hazaras in the Crosshairs? A scrutiny of recent incidents

Eight abductions of groups of people have been reported since late February by officials, activists or media as having targeted ethnic Hazaras. The first was also the biggest: the abduction of 31 bus passengers in Zabul on 23 February 2015. Other crimes ‘against Hazaras’ have been reported from Ghazni, Farah, Daikundi and Balkh. AAN’s Qayoom […]

24 Apr 2015 Qayoom Suroush • War and Peace

First wave of IS attacks? Claim and denial over the Jalalabad bombs

The suicide attack on the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad on 18 April 2015, which killed more than 30 people and injured at least 100 others, was condemned by the Taleban and claimed by the Islamic State (IS), or at least by a Facebook site purporting to represent IS, also known as Daesh. President Ashraf Ghani also […]

22 Apr 2015 Borhan Osman • Kate Clark • War and Peace

Afghanistan (almost) has a cabinet: MPs confirm all candidate ministers

Members of parliament have endorsed all sixteen candidates put forward by Afghanistan’s national unity government. This means that, six months into its term, the country has an almost complete cabinet – only the defence minister is still missing. This is the MPs’ second such vote. The first, on 28 January 2015, saw only a third […]

18 Apr 2015 Kate Clark • Political Landscape

Four next public events with AAN participation

There are four public events in the next two weeks with AAN participation, in Copenhagen (Denmark), Heidelberg and Berlin (both Germany), Basle (Switzerland).   22 April 2015, 8pm at Heidelberg Theatre Podium discussion (in German), “Peace?! Afghanistan after the ISAF mission“ Participants: • Thomas Ruttig, Co-Director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network; • Ahmad Nasir Formuli […]

16 Apr 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Events

‘Peace-for-Power’ versus Participatory Solutions: Lessons of Tajikistan’s civil war – a book review

In a highly relevant 2013 book, Central Asia analysts Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian Bleuer (*) have looked at social relations and the political system in Tajikistan at the end of the 1990s civil war in this Central Asian neighbour of Afghanistan. Our guest author Arne C. Seifert (**) has read the book and argues that […]

13 Apr 2015 Arne C Seifert • Regional Relations

Reading in Kabul: The state of Afghan libraries

With Afghanistan’s educated class growing rapidly over the past decade while education resources remain scarce, there is an increasing need for a functioning public library system, AAN’s Qayoom Suroush argues. However, the only public library of Afghanistan’s capital – at the same time standing in for a non-existent national library – is not even close […]

9 Apr 2015 Qayoom Suroush • Economy, Development, Environment

Fire in the Pashai Hills: A two-district case study from Kapisa

The Taleban are making further headway towards Kabul. In Kapisa province, 80 kilometers northeast of the capital, they have already established an administrative system governing one of the districts, Alasai. An uprising staged against them last summer by local Jamiati commanders failed,  largely due to lack of support from government forces. At the same time, […]

6 Apr 2015 Obaid Ali • War and Peace

Post Runners, Aerogrammes and the Big E-Mail Challenge: Scenes from 135 years of Afghan postal service

Calling the pre-email postal service (hand-written letters, you remember, and postcards) “snail mail” has been appropriate for Afghanistan for most of the past century, and even before. Established in 1878, it took Afghanistan’s service half a century to become part of the international postal system. After that, it was cut off during long years of […]

29 Mar 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture