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Elections 2014 (25): Election mobilisation of women in the Pashtun southeast

For the second round of the presidential election on 14 June 2014, some of the major tribes in Paktia have decided their women should also participate more actively, allowing them to cast their votes themselves. Women turnout in Pashtun-inhabited areas is usually below average, which is increasingly being perceived as a disadvantage by candidates relying […]

12 Jun 2014 Pakteen Ibrahimi • Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Security Forces Spread Thin: An update from contested Faryab province

On the day after the Afghan vote, nearly unnoticed in the election frenzy, Faryab province experienced yet another complex Taleban attack. Taleban fighters stormed large parts of Qaisar district, and ruled the area for almost three weeks. The Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan Local Police (ALP) retreated immediately, outnumbered and faced with more and […]

11 Jun 2014 Obaid Ali • War and Peace

Elections 2014 (24): The IECC’s performance addressing provincial council complaints

While most observers are focused on the upcoming second round of the presidential election, the process surrounding the provincial council vote is still ongoing. The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) finished its open sessions last week and, in response to allegations of manipulation by IEC staff, ordered a widespread recount of votes, which had already […]

9 Jun 2014 Martine van Bijlert • Qayoom Suroush • Political Landscape

Election 2014 (23): Deals and insults in Afghanistan’s second round campaign

Less than a week before the second round of the presidential election on 14 June 2014, the campaigns of both contenders are well under way. Alongside the main campaign methods of the first round – billboards, large public rallies – the process of deal-making and recruiting influential supporters seems to have now moved to the […]

9 Jun 2014 AAN Team • Political Landscape

Death in Aleppo: A group of Afghan fighters located in Syria

Are Afghans fighting in the war in Syria? There have been a few reports to that effect in the international news media over the past months, detailing recruitment efforts mainly by the Iranian government among Hazaras in order to bolster the Assad regime’s manpower. However, there has never been evidence of Afghan fighters actually present in […]

6 Jun 2014 Christopher Reuter • War and Peace

Bergdahl and the ‘Guantanamo Five’: The long-awaited US-Taleban prisoner swap

The prisoner swap negotiated between the Taleban and United States has seen the release of the captured US soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in return for five Taleban held at Guantanamo Bay, including one of the movement’s founders, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and the former chief of the army staff, Mullah Fazl. Much of the reporting on the […]

4 Jun 2014 Kate Clark • International Engagement

Bureaucratic Policies and Patronage Politics: Prospects and Challenges of Private Higher Education in Afghanistan

The latest AAN report, “Bureaucratic Policies and Patronage Politics: Prospects and Challenges of Private Higher Education in Afghanistan” by Niamatullah Ibrahimi, looks into the impressive growth of private higher education sector in Afghanistan in recent years but how this growth is overlooking the comprehensive policies and long-term vision towards a better quality education and its […]

1 Jun 2014 Niamatullah Ibrahimi • Special Reports

How good are Afghanistan’s private universities? An interview with the author of AAN’s latest paper

AAN is launching its latest paper, looking at the state of Afghanistan’s private higher education sector (download paper here). Over the past five years, private universities have experienced an unprecedented boom. This is not only good news. In this interview, the author of the paper, Niamatullah Ibrahimi (*), an Afghan analysts who has extensively researched and written about current and […]

1 Jun 2014 AAN Team • Economy, Development, Environment

Thematic Dossier V: Afghan Education Policies and Politics

Accompanying our latest paper on education in Afghanistan – on the advantages and disadvantages of a rapidly growing private higher education sector –, we offer another of our Thematic Dossiers. It provides an overview of all of AAN’s education related dispatches and papers. For easier access to the body of work that includes pieces from the past five years […]

1 Jun 2014 AAN Team • Dossiers

The Other Transfer of Power: Fahim’s death and Massud’s succession

Until the elections of 5 April, the demise of Marshal Mohammed Qasim Fahim constituted the single major political event of 2014 in Afghanistan. His death directly affects the internal politics of a large group of Afghans: all those living in the north-eastern quadrant of the country. Tracing the political ascent of Fahim and assessing the […]

30 May 2014 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

A Second ‘Death List’: More on those forcibly disappeared in the civil war

After last year’s release of a ‘death list’ containing almost 5000 names of men who ‘disappeared’ in the late 1970s, another list is to be publicly available soon, this time listing 671 men who were forcibly disappeared during the civil war in Kabul in the mid-1990s. The document was put together, at the time, by […]

28 May 2014 P. Gossman • Rights and Freedoms

Death of a Sahebzada: A story of different strands of thought in the Taleban movement

Earlier this year, a radical Afghan religious leader from a family of Sufi Pirs was murdered in Quetta, Pakistan. His name was Abdullah Zakeri Sahebzada. His relationships with the Taleban’s leadership and repeated calls for international jihad had earned him the ‘Taleb’ label in some media. But Zakeri, once a mediator in the Taleban movement, had […]

25 May 2014 Bette Dam • Context and Culture

Elections 2014 (22): How disenchantment with General Dostum split the Uzbek vote bank

The outcome in the Uzbek- and Turkmen-dominated provinces in northern Afghanistan of the first round of the 5 April presidential election has turned in an unexpected direction. Jombesh-e Melli-ye Islami-ye Afghanistan’s (The National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan), the self-declared dominating party in this region, had expected to obtain the entire ‘Turkic’ vote for the Ghani-Dostum […]

22 May 2014 Obaid Ali • Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

2014 Elections (21): A closer look at the IECC’s performance and the challenges it faced

For the first time since elections were held in post-Taleban Afghanistan, the country’s Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) has held a series of open sessions addressing electoral complaints. The concept was, in principle, welcomed by independent observers, candidates’ agents and civil society, but the process itself was often confused and rushed and sometimes overly bureaucratic. […]

19 May 2014 Qayoom Suroush • Political Landscape

2014 Elections (20): The Ashraf Ghani interview

In the second of AAN’s interviews with the two remaining Afghan presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani has challenged his rival, Dr Abdullah, to televised debates – after Abdullah told AAN he did not want any debates this time. Ghani also dared Abdullah’s running mate, the Hazara politician, Muhammad Muhaqeq, to discuss publically with him who has […]

18 May 2014 Kate Clark • Political Landscape

Elections 2014 (19): Final results’ timeline trumps transparency

This morning, on 15 May 2014, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the final results of the first round of the presidential elections. Both frontrunners have since then publicly accepted the results, while still claiming that in a fair process they would have done better, and are readying themselves for the second round vote that […]

16 May 2014 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

2014 Elections (18): The Abdullah interview

The second round of Afghanistan’s presidential election has not yet been formally announced, but preparations are already underway, with election material just beginning to be sent out across the country. The run-off is pencilled in for 14 June 2014 and, this time, only two names will be on the ballot paper: Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Dr […]

11 May 2014 Kate Clark • Political Landscape

Slippery Slopes: Ecological, social and developmental aspects of the Badakhshan landslide disaster

A huge double landslide, of possibly unprecedented proportions, destroyed parts of a village in Badakhshan’s Argo district and killed a still unconfirmed number of people on 2 May. AAN Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig looks at the combination of causes of this disaster including the long-term effects of global warming impacting large parts of South Asia, local […]

9 May 2014 Thomas Ruttig • Economy, Development, Environment

‘Secret NATO Jails’ that Aren’t Secret: Ambush and drama over detainees

In the Afghan government’s latest attempt to wipe out any foreign role in detentions, the commander of the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP) on Bagram Air base, General Faruq Barakzai, has said detainees can no longer be sent there. Both US and UK forces have been transferring detainees to the DFIP, which the US finally handed […]

6 May 2014 Kate Clark • International Engagement

May Day on Workers Street: Trade unions and the status of labour in Afghanistan

More than 1,000 Afghan men and women took to the street on International Labour Day on 1 May. With the country’s latest mining disaster, killing at least 24 workers only one day earlier, the participants had one acute problem to address: workers’ safety in the mining sector. However, the new leadership of Afghanistan’s largest trade […]

4 May 2014 Thomas Ruttig • Economy, Development, Environment