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Lack of Capacity and Capital: Is Afghanistan Under-Selling the Ainak Copper?

Containing 240 million metric tons of ore at 2.3 per cent copper content, the Ainak mine is considered one of the largest deposits of this metal in the world. It is located in Muhammad Agha district of Logar province, about 30 kilometres south-east of the Afghan capital, and was contracted to a Chinese consortium in […]

25 Aug 2012 Gran Hewad • Economy, Development, Environment

Guest Blog: Big Bucks for Big Players – Logistic fortunes of the Afghan war

The logistics business is one of the most lucrative yet murkiest aspects of international security operations in Afghanistan. Involving backroom dealings and hundreds of millions of dollars, the stakes are high, as is the alleged involvement of the Afghan political elite. So who’s running the show, what are the scams, and what will happen as […]

20 Aug 2012 Mohammad Jawad • Economy, Development, Environment

On the borders: Where do the attacks in Nimruz come from?

The recent multiple suicide attacks that hit Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province – with possibly one of the single biggest losses of lives in the Afghan conflict – received relatively small attention by the international media. Of course, both the global media and public are in a slack period regarding news from Afghanistan. The […]

18 Aug 2012 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

Afghan Politicking after the Rebellion in Tajik Badakhshan (amended)

After a week of fighting, events in Tajikistan’s part of Badakhshan are quietening down. While a lot has been made in some media outlets of a possible cross-border Taleban link, events seem to have their background in the drug economy rather. On the Afghan side of the border politicking as a side-effect of the events […]

16 Aug 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Regional Relations

7-9 September 2012: Photo exhibition and conference in Trieste

On the occasion of the photographic exhibition ‘Nur/Luce [Light]. Appunti afgani’ by photographer and writer Monika Bulaj, the municipality of Trieste organises a three-day event with the presence of several international scholars, diplomats, researchers, media and humanitarian workers, focusing on various aspects of Afghanistan’s culture, history and politics. On behalf of AAN, Thomas Ruttig and […]

15 Aug 2012 AAN • admin • Events

Karzai’s Decree to Combat Corruption: Cause for Cautious Optimism?

Afghan President Hamed Karzai’s recent executive decree focussing on (but not only) the fight against corruption, which partly came as a reaction to debates at the recent international Afghanistan conference in Tokyo, sparked mixed reactions from Afghan parliamentarians, activists, experts and people at large. AAN’s researcher S. Reza Kazemi takes a closer look at the […]

15 Aug 2012 S Reza Kazemi • Political Landscape

The commuter of Alisheng: Death of a country district governor

The insurgent strategy of targeting rural government officials like woluswals (district governors) is not a new one, and it is gaining importance as the battle for contested areas becomes more acute. District governors cut a sometimes misunderstood figure in this war, as they are often portrayed as either old-times commanders or uninfluential pawns in somebody […]

14 Aug 2012 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

The Takhar attack and Targeted Killings: the Legal Challenge

An Afghan bank worker from rural Takhar, Habib Rahman, is taking the British government to court over Britain’s participation in drawing up and executing the US military’s ‘kill list’ which singles out alleged insurgents for targeted killing. Rahman lost his father-in-law, Zabet Amanullah, and several other close relatives in September 2010 when an air strike […]

12 Aug 2012 Kate Clark • International Engagement

AAN Reportage: Who fights whom in the Andar Uprising?

The story of what is still being hailed by the government and media as a ‘popular uprising’ against the Taleban in Andar district, Ghazni has become one of the most ambiguous events on the battlefield for many years. The dominant and much-hyped account of what has happened presents an optimistic image of a purely popular […]

10 Aug 2012 Emal Habib • War and Peace

Parliament sacks key ministers: Two birds with one stone?

The Afghan Lower House of the parliament, in an unprecedented move, voted out the two key ministers of Defence and Interior, in a single session. While it is early to make predictions on who will succeed them and whether they will be kept on as acting ministers for a while, it is worth having a […]

6 Aug 2012 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

Paint It Pink: The US redefining ANA success

Twice a year, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) reports to the Congress and Senate committees on defense, appropriations, and foreign relations on the ‘progress’ of the conflict in Afghanistan. AAN guest blogger, Gary Owen, a former soldier who now is working as a civilian development worker(*) has been scrutinizing the reports, teasing out, […]

2 Aug 2012 Gary Owen • International Engagement

The Networks of Kunduz: A History of Conflict and Their Actors, from 1992 to 2001

A new Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report by author Nils Wörmer looks at networks of power in Kunduz province. Wörmer writes that when Germany’s political decision makers opted for Kunduz, in north-eastern Afghanistan, as the location for its future Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and soldiers and governmental development workers started to deploy in 2003, they […]

2 Aug 2012 Nils Wormer • Special Reports

Kabuli Youth in Ramazan Nights: A Passion for Futsal and More

Under the growing fog of war in Afghanistan – ISAF just reported an increase of violence by 11 per cent – the Afghan youth are struggling to live normally and gain visibility nationally, let alone internationally. During the current month of Ramazan, futsal (1) outdoors and indoors has become particularly popular among a significant part […]

1 Aug 2012 S Reza Kazemi • Context and Culture

Afghan-led? or: People with one name only

Tom Peter, the Christian Science Monitor correspondent in Kabul, just wrote a story how US soldiers in Arghandab district had denied him access for 90 minutes to the local district governor with whom he had scheduled an interview and who did not want him to bring in his tape recorder. He wondered ‘how much control […]

31 Jul 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

Correcting Details: More on the NYT Reporting the Human Rights Mapping

The New York Times piece ‘Top Afghans Tied to ’90s Carnage, Researchers Say’ ‘revealed’ what everyone knows and rarely says, that many of today’s senior Afghan politicians have murky pasts. Talking about the war crimes of the last thirty years has proved difficult for Afghans and the international powers alike. The decision, in 2005, to […]

30 Jul 2012 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Libya and Afghanistan: Elections without a social contract

Long queues at polling centres, happy voters waving inked fingers in front of cameras, and musings on how a new, better era was in store for Libya – sounds like Afghanistan 2004. Our guest blogger Ann Mac Dougall(*), who has worked in both countries, cannot help wondering whether Libya will follow the Afghan pattern from […]

29 Jul 2012 • Political Landscape

The Cloak of Silence: Afghanistan’s Human Rights Mappings

On 22 July, the New York Times came out with an article on human rights abuses in Afghanistan which it wrote up based on a document that has neither been published (although it is waiting for publication since many months, and Afghan groups have now demanded that it finally happens)(1) nor it apparently has been […]

27 Jul 2012 Ahmed Rashid • Rights and Freedoms

Flash from the Past: Afghans’ Shattered 2000 Olympic Dreams (amended)

The 2012 Olympic Games start today in London with half a dozen Afghans representing their country in taekwondo, boxing, judo and athletics (1) and at least two Para-Olympians competing in weight-lifting and athletics (2). AAN’s senior analyst, Kate Clark, was in Kabul during the 2000 Olympics, when potential Afghan contenders had to stay at home […]

27 Jul 2012 Kate Clark • Context and Culture

Clashes in Eastern Tajikistan – with Afghan Participation?

Local media speak of ‘unprecedented violence’, after Tajik security forces have started a ‘special operation’ against what the government in Dushanbe calls an ‘armed, illegal group involved in drug trafficking and also tobacco smuggling and the trafficking of minerals’, following the murder of a high-ranking security official. Interestingly, it has claimed there were Afghan citizens […]

26 Jul 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Regional Relations

Written in Ice? Protests after the public execution of a woman in Parwan

There have been fresh demonstrations condemning the public execution of a young woman, Najiba, in a Taleban-controlled village in a province just to the north of Kabul in June. The video of the execution, which was shown across the world, alerted many to how near the capital Taleban ‘rule’ extended. However, the target of the […]

17 Jul 2012 Obaid Ali • Rights and Freedoms