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Is the Afghan Peace Process Really in Shambles?

Thomas Ruttig, in: IDN Nação e Defesa (Lisbon), no 130 (2011), pp 31-54. (Abstract online only:) In the article published in the journal of the Portuguese Instituto da Defesa Nactional (IDN), AAN’s Thomas Ruttig looks at the repercussions of the killing of Afghan HPC chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani and warns to interpret the assassination (the background […]

1 Feb 2012 Thomas Ruttig • External publications

Talks on Two Channels? The Qatar office and Karzai’s Saudi option

The latest reports about developments on reconciliation – or better: talks with insurgent groups, both with the Taleban and Hezb-e Islami* – have been rather contradictory. Or haven’t they? The main insight from these reports, is that President Karzai has only rhetorically bowed to the unilateral US/German thrust to establish a Taleban liaison office in […]

29 Jan 2012 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

What Next for the AIHRC (2): Civil Society Responses

When three of the nine members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) were removed by President Hamed Karzai in December, it laid bare the fragile position of human rights activism in Afghanistan. In AAN’s second blog* on the removal of the AIHRC Commissioners, Sari Kouvo takes a look at how the President’s move […]

23 Jan 2012 Sari Kouvo • Rights and Freedoms

Talking and Killing in Early 2012

A series of suicide attacks have left dozens of people killed and injured in the last few days in southern Afghanistan. There was inevitable carnage among civilians when suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowded bazaar in Helmand on Wednesday (18 January) and at the entrance to the NATO base in Kandahar on Thursday. […]

21 Jan 2012 Kate Clark • War and Peace

A Katanga Scenario for Afghanistan? (amended)

When former Northern Alliance leaders met with a group of influential US congressmen and businessmen in Berlin in early January, the meeting made a lot of waves in Kabul, because it created the impression that a broad anti-Karzai alliance was in the making and that it had started to muster support in the US. Furthermore, […]

19 Jan 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Economy, Development, Environment

Striking at Kabul, now and then

The start of a new year is always an opportunity for reflection. 2011 was not the first and will probably not be the last year that drew to a close amid violence in Kabul. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini takes a historical look at how the conflict has reached inside the gates of the Afghan capital in […]

17 Jan 2012 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

-2 February 2012, Barcelona: Afghanistan: Challenging the International Exit Strategy

AAN will start the year with a conference on Afghanistan’s transition and its aftermath. Some of the questions to discuss are: Will Afghan security forces be ready to tackle the security challenges facing Afghanistan during and after transition? How can peace and justice be balanced in a reconciliation process? What prospects are there for economic […]

15 Jan 2012 AAN • admin • Events

Guest blog: The logic of bandit life: From 20th century Chinese bandits to the contemporary Afghan insurgency

Chinese bandits never cleaned their guns before noon. That could lead to an attack by the enemy. They didn’t say ‘tiger’ or ‘spirit’, as these words would bring bad luck. Socks were ‘smelly tubes’, bullets ‘white rice’, and they called giving up banditry ‘washing their hands’. Deedee Derksen reads ‘Bandits in Republican China’ by Phil […]

5 Jan 2012 Deedee Derksen • Context and Culture

National Coalition vs National Front: Two opposition alliances put Jamiat in a dilemma

And yet another opposition alliance, but not a really new one. Before Christmas, Dr Abdullah Abdullah extended his own Hope and Change alliance with a few more political parties and politicians. It was renamed the National Coalition of Afghanistan (NCA). Apparently, Abdullah is trying to make it look more like a real coalition and less […]

4 Jan 2012 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

20 January 2012: Two new non-AAN papers by Thomas Ruttig

Two new papers by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig have been published, one contributed to a conference organised by the Aspen Institute and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Berlin this January and a contribution for the journal of the National Defence Institute of Portugal. Thomas Ruttig, ‘Afghanistan between Democratization and Civil War: Post-2014 Scenarios’, in: Charles King Mallory IV/Joachim Krause […]

1 Jan 2012 AAN • admin • Events

A Year-Ender: The Dummies’ Guide to the Geneva Conventions

While the Taleban have been stepping up their assassination campaign in the past year, another worrying development occurred: There were several cases of international forces, Special Forces in particular, entering NGO-run clinics on pursuit of alleged insurgents, bullying medical staff for treating insurgents or using clinics temporarily as bases. This clearly violates the Geneva Conventions. […]

31 Dec 2011 Susanne Schmeidl • International Engagement

AAN wishes everyone a safe, happy and peaceful 2012.

With prayers and wishes for steps towards in peace in Afghanistan and happiness for all our readers and friends. May the coming year be better than the last.

30 Dec 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Guest Blog: Afghanistan’s post-2014 relation crisis

As the year 2011 nears its end and analysts all over the world write their end-of-year reviews, Afghan journalist Akmal Dawi discusses Afghanistan’s regional relations. He finds Kabul at odds with many regional capitals, for reasons that are beyond its control, and wonders what kind of hostile post-2014 neighbourhood Afghanistan may find itself in. President […]

30 Dec 2011 Akmal Dawi • Regional Relations

Another Blow to Justice: Three Commissioners Fired from the AIHRC

Three of the nine members of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), one of the most successful, outspoken and internationally venerated institutions of post-Taleban Afghanistan, are losing their posts. What has been declared as a normal process, of bringing fresh blood into the commission, smells very political, though. It rather looks as if this is […]

23 Dec 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Rights and Freedoms

Ministry of Education reacts to “The Battle for the Schools”

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education has issued an official statement in Dari in response to AAN’s latest report “The Battle for the Schools”, in which it refutes all substance of the report, calls its findings fabricated and assures the great Afghan nation of its tireless efforts and the impeccable Islamic credentials of its curriculum. The full […]

19 Dec 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Economy, Development, Environment

An Address for the Taleban in Qatar

The much heralded Taleban office in a third country seems finally about to be opened. The news that this will happen in Qatar, broken by an Indian newspaper on Wednesday* and picked up by Kabul-based Tolo TV a day later, was followed by President Karzai calling back his ambassador in Doha ‘for consultations’ claiming that […]

16 Dec 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Melons: Afghan riches at the surface level

Winter chills are slowly creeping into our sunny Kabul existences. There are few comforts for this, and one is certainly fruit. In this season, oranges, guavas and, above all, pomegranates do a lot to assuage our troubles. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini and Gran Hewad have also been finding solace in the memory of the bountiful melon […]

15 Dec 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Context and Culture

13 December: New AAN Report about the Taleban and State Education

The new AAN report ‘The Battle for Education: The Taleban and State Education’ by authors Antonio Giustozzi and Claudio Franco looks at the Taleban’s changing attitude towards state education. In the last two years, the Taleban have increasingly allowed schools to operate in areas under their control or influence, but this has come at a […]

13 Dec 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Life on the Frontline (1): Travelling on Wardak’s Roads: ’We feel we are dead’

In a new occasional series of blogs AAN will be looking at what it is like to live in areas contested by Taleban and the Afghan government/US forces. In this first contribution, a reporter from Wardak who asked not to be named, spoke to men from Jaghatu district about travelling on the province’s roads. How […]

13 Dec 2011 AAN Team • War and Peace

The Battle for Schools: The Taleban and State Education

This new AAN report by authors Antonio Giustozzi and Claudio Franco looks at the Taleban’s changing attitude towards state education. In the last two years, the Taleban have increasingly allowed schools to operate in areas under their control or influence, but this has come at a price – a more conservative curriculum and more mullahs […]

13 Dec 2011 Antonio Giustozzi • Claudio Franco • Special Reports