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Ghorband – A Valley Once Friendly

In May, we have been reporting about the deteriorating security situation in Eastern Afghanistan. There, it appears, an ‘insurgency corridor’ has been emerging, through which insurgents ‘will be able to move unhindered from the Pakistani border to Laghman, and from there into Kapisa and Kabul provinces’*. The killing of the Bamian Provincial Council (PC) chairman […]

19 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Well done, medium or ‘authentic’? – or: Reality is satire

The following piece was published by the AFP. We did not make it up, we swear. Wanted: Afghan butcher class for US special forces AFP, 18/07/2011 WASHINGTON US special forces in Afghanistan are known for taking out militants in stealthy night raids but commanders now want them to learn how to butcher meat and cook […]

19 Jul 2011 AAN • Context and Culture

Guest Blog: Principles Sold-out – A Farewell to Afghanistan

The 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga was more representative then anything seen in Afghanistan in the previous 25 years, writes our guest blogger, but it was sold out to the warlords for a cheap political compromise, argues our guest blogger Jan Malekzade*. Looking back at two stints with the UN, he says farewell to Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s […]

19 Jul 2011 Jan Malekzade • International Engagement

Who was Jan Muhammad Khan?

Another closest Karzai aide killed within five days: after Ahmad Wali Karzai on 12 July, now Jan Muhammad Khan, the former governor and grey eminence of Uruzgan. While the circumstances of the assassinations are distinct (AWK killed by a lone gunman and ostensible friend, JMK by a suicide bomber crew), both men had a lot […]

18 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Where criminals forgive themselves

The Afghan Civil Society Forum (ACSFo) today released a report titled ‘How People Define Violence and Justice in Afghanistan (1958 – 2008)’. Prepared by ACSFo with the funding of the Heinrich-Bӧll-Stiftung, the report provides a valuable insight into Afghans’ perceptions of these two concepts, drawn by their extensive experience of at least the first of […]

17 Jul 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Rights and Freedoms

Guest Blog: Let’s Remember Afghanistan on International Criminal Justice Day

Last year in Kampala (Uganda), the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to celebrate 17 July as the Day of International Criminal Justice, to commemorate the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 1998). As we celebrate International Criminal Justice Day, Ajmal Pashtoonyar* takes the opportunity […]

17 Jul 2011 Ajmal Pashtoonyar • Rights and Freedoms

BREAKING NEWS: BAMIAN HANDED BACK TO AFGHANISTAN

The BBC has just been reporting that NATO has handed over the security responsibility for Bamian province to the Afghan government. It has bee a big secret – no one has told us in advance. In what was a highly classified operation, NATO/ISAF has handed over the security responsibility for the Central Afghan province of […]

17 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

Dad Noorani, critic of warlordism, passed away

Wednesday night, Dad Noorani, one of Afghanistan’s best political analysts and most courageous journalists, succumbed to a heart attack. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig commemorates the determined opponent of warlordism and defender of the rule of law. Born in Farah in 1956, Dad* Noorani – he also used the first name Paghar – studied medicine at Kabul University […]

14 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Guest Blog: Electricity Matters

The often still poor socio-economic situation rarely makes the headlines which are dominated by stories about attacks like the ones on Kabul Interconti hotel and Ahmad Wali Karzai. But it is a scandal that Mazar-e Sharif, one of Afghanistan’s major cities, still has one to three hours of electricity per day after ten years of […]

14 Jul 2011 Abdul Latif Sahak • Khan Mohammad Danishju • Economy, Development, Environment

Guest Blog: The Enteqal 7 – Fear in the valley of the Five Lions

The starting handover of security responsibility to the Afghan government, reports about talks with the Taleban and a feeling of alienation are contributing to a sense of increasing fear in the Panjshir valley, a stronghold of anti-Taleban reisstance. Our guest blogger Sayed Salahuddin* looks at the background, both in history and current events. The handover […]

13 Jul 2011 Sayed Salahuddin • War and Peace

Ahmad Wali Karzai, the node of the southern networks, killed

In the long line of assassinations carried out by all sides in the war since 2001, Ahmad Wali Karzai is surely the most powerful man yet to be killed. Formally, his powers were limited to being the head of Kandahar’s provincial council, an elected body. Informally, he was the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, […]

12 Jul 2011 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Parliament Crisis: Impeachment and Other Threats

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) which had seen its final result for the 18 September election undermined by series of manoeuvres culminating in the establishment of the Special Election Court, has re-entered the arena. Trying to solve the months-long parliamentary crisis, it has submitted a proposal that intends to cut through the Gordian knot – […]

11 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

German Government Reviews Afghan ‘Progress’

The online part of German magazine Spiegel comments on the Berlin government’s last update on the situation in Afghanistan* and says that it highlights the ‘open contradictions’ in Afghanistan’s ‘progress’. The magazine quotes German AfPak special envoy Michael Steiner as saying that he wants to give an ‘unvarnished picture’ and that he sees both ‘light […]

11 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Fire at the Durand Line

Since mid-June, warming relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have run into serious trouble again. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan (and ISAF) of doing nothing to stop militants from attacking Pakistani border posts and villages, Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of shelling villages in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, killing civilians and causing hundreds of families to flee. AAN Advisory Board […]

10 Jul 2011 Ann Wilkens • Regional Relations

Guest Blog: ‘What are the Taleban supposed to do if they won?’

Berlin daily die tageszeitung (taz) met former Taleban ambassador Mulla Abdul Salam Za‘if and Muhammad Massum Stanakzai, head of the APRP secretariat, together and asked them about negotiations, red lines, preconditions and Afghanistan’s future. It was ‘as if the war already was over’, as taz interviewer Sven Hansen* remarked. taz: Mr Stanekzai and Mullah Za‘if, why […]

9 Jul 2011 Sven Hansen • War and Peace

Bonn 2: A Top-down Approach to Civil Society Again

In November 2009, three months before the London Conference on Afghanistan, AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig wrote a blog under the title ‘A meaningful Afghanistan conference needs civil society involvement’. Re-reading it five months before the next one in the long series of Afghanistan conferences*, in Bonn again, he thought he can simply re-post it: […]

8 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Guest Blog: Ghori Cement – A loss-making goldmine

Under pressure to repay his loans to Kabul Bank, the president’s brother, Mahmud Karzai, has sold his shares in the Afghan Investment Company. This could open a new future for the country’s biggest cement factory, Ghori Cement in Baghlan, that has so far been plagued by nepotism, reports Mir Sediq Zaliq*, an Afghan journalist working […]

7 Jul 2011 Mir Sediq Zaliq • Economy, Development, Environment

Najib Who? Or: A Faux-pas Transition Press Release

Press releases of NATO and ISAF in Kabul are not known for their literary quality. Mostly, they inform matter-of-factually about successes of the Western troops and political progress achieved and often are full of euphemistic language, military neologisms and acronyms. Not different those of DVIDS, the ISAF Joint Command’s Defence Video & Imagery Distribution System. […]

6 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

6 July 2011 AAN’s Kate Clark in the Frontline Club

On 6 July, AAN’s Kate Clark will be on the panel of the prestigious Frontline Club in London discussing ‘Kill/Capture missions in Afghanistan’. Her AAN report on a bungled ‘intelligence-driven’ US Special Forces operation 2010 in Takhar province in Northern Afghanistan has made some waves. Following the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Frontline […]

5 Jul 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Looking at the Azra Hospital Attack (amended)

The suicide car-bomb attack that destroyed the civilian hospital of Logar’s eastern-most district Azra on 25 June was terrible even for Afghan standards, with now [amended: 29] registered dead and 53 wounded. Amongst the victims were reportedly 15 children waiting for immunisation as well as five toddlers; the 10-bed maternity ward completely destroyed. But the […]

5 Jul 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Fabrizio Foschini • War and Peace