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How outside interference politicised the Achin land conflict

Reading the news in the morning sometimes brings big surprises. Even before a suicide car rammed into a US military convoy on Kabul’s Dar-ul-Aman road yesterday, causing the heaviest death toll among ISAF troops ever in the capital, the AAN office was already puzzled by another event: the latest bloody outcome of the years-old land […]

30 Oct 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace

Under Atta’s Shadow: political life in the Afghan north

The collapse of the Taleban regime in 2001 paved the ground for the start of what had the potential to be a comparatively democratic political scene in Afghanistan. In due course, the existing jihadi parties and former communists in the northern province of Balkh slowly started to deal with the new situation. In the case […]

26 Oct 2011 Enayat Najafizada • War and Peace

Pakistan, Taleban, America and the vacillations of the Afghan president

President Karzai’s offer to back Pakistan if it ever came under attack from America was breath-taking. ‘God forbid,’ he told GEO TV during a visit to Islamabad, ‘if a war breaks between Pakistan and America, we will side [with] Pakistan. We are your brother.’ It was not just the scenario of an American-funded, trained and […]

25 Oct 2011 Kate Clark • Regional Relations

Jamiat after Rabbani: The competition for the top job

The murder of Ustad Rabbani also made one of Afghanistan’s oldest parties, Jamiat-e Islami, leaderless. For more than three and half decades, the Ustad had stood at its top. His killing came as the party had started considering internal reforms. This process has now accelerated, pushed by the need to fill the party’s top vacancy. […]

23 Oct 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Counting victories and losses: the war of stats

In the last week, there has been a lot of discussion about what sort and how many Taleban are getting killed and captured, how many attacks the Taleban are launching and who, indeed, is ‘winning’ the war. Is ISAF beating the Taleban back or has it been exaggerating its claims? Kate Clark has been trying […]

22 Oct 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

BREAKING NEWS: Double Rainbow over Kabul

Rain in Kabul is always good news. But it also has an aesthetic component: Before the backdrop of the mountains around the city, it creates the most beautiful rainbows. This inspired AAN’s Thomas Ruttig and Fabrizio Foschini to muse about a few rain-related issues. The heavy shower that went down over Afghanistan’s usually dust-covered capital […]

21 Oct 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

‘The big hope has been replaced by a big concern’: the Ten Years anniversary in the Afghan Press

In Afghanistan it is always a good time for stock-taking. The ten year anniversary of the US-led intervention on 7 October, though, did offer an unmatched opportunity to do so for many commentators. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini had a look at what the Afghan printed press has been saying on the occasion and what attitudes their […]

17 Oct 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • International Engagement

Afghanistan mourns Ghazal King Jagjit Singh’s passing and the loss of its own musical excellence

On Monday 10 October 2011, Jagjit Singh, a legend of Indian music, passed away in Lilavati hospital in Mumbai. Hearing that heartbreaking news, Afghans have expressed their condolences and sorrows in different ways. After receiving several sympathy messages from friends and relatives, AAN’s Naheed Esar Malikzay reflects on how his music specifically and Indian music, […]

15 Oct 2011 Naheed Esar Malikzay • Context and Culture

Analysing ISAF Press Releases – AAN Responds to ISAF’s Response

ISAF has taken ‘serious issue’ with AAN’s latest report ‘A Knock on the Door. 22 Months of ISAF Press Releases’ (see full text of the press release below). ISAF argues that the methodology is flawed and based on incomplete information, and it worries that this will ‘confuse serious researchers or those engaged in balanced reporting […]

14 Oct 2011 Martine van Bijlert • International Engagement

New AAN Report: A Knock on the Door: 22 Months of ISAF Press Releases

ISAF officials have long presented the capture‐or‐kill operations as one of the most effective parts of the military mission in Afghanistan. They regularly release large figures describing the number of ‘leaders’, ‘facilitators’ and ‘insurgents’ that were killed or captured, to illustrate the success of the campaign. AAN’s latest report, by Alex Strick van Linschoten and […]

14 Oct 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Mothers behind Bars: What about the Children?

Growing up with few evident opportunities and with conflict constantly lurking at the door is the reality for most Afghan children and youth. A group that gets more than its fair share of brick walls and violence are the children that grow up with their mothers in prison. AAN’s Sari Kouvo and Naheed Esar Malikzay […]

14 Oct 2011 Sari Kouvo • Rights and Freedoms

Death of Rabbani (5): Where is the evidence?

Three weeks after the killing of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Afghan authorities appear to have found out astonishingly little about who ordered and carried out this plot. As part of a new tranche of documents and testimony from the investigation, the Afghan intelligence agency, the NDS, has released videoed testimony from Hamidullah, the go-between who introduced […]

13 Oct 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

A Knock on the Door: 22 Months of ISAF Press Releases

ISAF officials have long presented the capture‐or‐kill operations as one of the most effective parts of the military mission in Afghanistan. They regularly release large figures describing the number of ‘leaders’, ‘facilitators’ and ‘insurgents’ that were killed or captured, to illustrate the success of the campaign. AAN’s latest report, by Alex Strick van Linschoten and […]

12 Oct 2011 Alex Strick-Van-Linschoten • Felix Kuehn • Special Reports

Nuristan in Fall

After a tough start, Nuristan province has passed the summer without further serious traumas. Still, all the pre-existing concerns about an insurgent takeover of the whole province are still there, just probably postponed to next year depending on the early onset of winter. In order to prevent this from happening, it is high time to […]

11 Oct 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

NDS Torture: UN Report Makes Bleak Reading

UNAMA has released a major report on torture in National Directorate of Security (NDS) and police detention. For those of us who have worked on war crimes investigations post-1978, it makes desolate reading. The places of torture and many of the methods are familiar from testimony from victims of previous governments, including the Taleban’s. What […]

11 Oct 2011 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Law Support Coalition rejoins Parliament but fights on, Semin Barakzai still on hunger strike

While the Law Support Coalition (LSC) was discussing whether to end its boycott of the parliament sessions, excluded MP from Herat Semin Barakzai went on a hunger strike starting on 2 October 2011, demanding that her exclusion be reviewed and overturned. On 8 October 2011 the LSC returned to the house session to announce its […]

9 Oct 2011 Gran Hewad • Political Landscape

The first Human Rights Film Festival in Afghanistan; a collection of inhuman true stories

‘There are about 33 human rights film festivals around the world, however, none of them taking place in the very Middle Eastern or Central Asian Countries which are gravely affected by human right violations’, the director of AHRF (Autumn Human Rights Film Festival) Malek Shafi’i told reporters. For the first time, from 1-7 of October, […]

9 Oct 2011 Naheed Esar Malikzay • Rights and Freedoms

Women and Reconciliation (3): One Step Forward and a Running Match Backwards

This week three major reports about women’s participation in a possible peace process and their stake in the future of Afghanistan were released. The key messages of the reports are that women’s achievements are fragile, and that they are now eroding. AAN’s Sari Kouvo had a look at the Afghanistan Women’s Network’s, ActionAid’s and OXFAM’s […]

8 Oct 2011 Sari Kouvo • Rights and Freedoms

Thinking out loud about peace, talks and tensions

In the weeks after Rabbani’s death by deceit and in the days after President Karzai’s oblique announcement of a new peace strategy, Afghans are trying to make sense of a complicated and murky situation. They are thinking out loud and what they say illustrates the complexity and the confusion, the diverging view points and the […]

7 Oct 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

Nobel Peace Prize: Not Sima, Again

Congratulations to Tawakul Karman from Yemen and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee from Liberia for this year’s Nobel Peace Price. The citation given by the Swedish committee that awards the prize is also to the point: it was given for the three laureats’ ‘non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights […]

7 Oct 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Rights and Freedoms