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The Survival of the Private Security Companies

“As we move towards the transition process, all foreign parallel functions and institutions including private security firms, the PRTs, existence of the militias, detention of Afghan citizens by foreign forces and arbitrary house searches must stop immediately.” – Karzai’s speech on 23 March 2011, announcing the first phase of the Enteqal process. There are a […]

27 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

White mountains, White City

On his first day in Kabul again after some time in Europe, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig finds spring scents and dust on the tongue in the Afghan capital, and the two universes – that of Afghans and that of the expat community – fully intact: one picknicking, the other one in ‘White City’ lock-down. Back to […]

26 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

The Enteqal Seven (1): A Nowruz chakar to Bamian

Spring is here again. With the first warmth, AAN staff starts its occasional migration to higher pastures, Bamian in this case. The Nowruz holidays offer a much appreciated opportunity (and the announcement of Bamian as one of the first seven areas where Afghan security forces will take over from July onwards) to do so without […]

25 Mar 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

It Needs Two to Talk: Reading the Century Foundation report

Today, the US-based Century Foundation (TCF) came out with a comprehensive report containing a set of proposals on ‘Negotiating Peace’ in Afghanistan. It is not the first – and won’t be the last – paper of this kind but, with Brahimi and Pickering as co-chairs of this Task Force and Vendrell, Guehenno and others on […]

23 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Talking about peace talks; a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions

For a while now I have been feeling uneasy over the direction the debate on ‘talking to the Taleban’ is taking. The more I listen to conversation about reaching some kind of settlement, the more I feel as if I am wading into a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions, with a potentially dangerous level of […]

22 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

Guest Blog: Afghanistan After 2014 – Thinking about Scenarios

While much of current international attention is focussed on the time from now to 2014, with the enteqal (handover) process moving into the focus – President Karzai just had defined the first seven areas of security responsibility affair, namely three full provinces and four other provincial capitals – in particular many Afghans look at the […]

21 Mar 2011 Almut Wieland-Karimi • Political Landscape

Museums and Massacres

A new exhibition at the Kabul Museum has opened with the display of some exquisitely beautiful exhibits, newly found at the archaeological dig which is preceding the development of the Mes-e Ainak copper mine in Logar. Ambassadors, generals and ministers gathered with curators and archaeologists for the opening and an announcement that a new Afghan […]

21 Mar 2011 Kate Clark • Context and Culture

Pashtunwali – tribal life and behaviour among the Pashtuns

‘Doing Pashto: Pashtunwali as the ideal of honourable behaviour and tribal life among the Pashtuns’ – this new thematic report by Lutz Rzehak provides an overview about the way of life of the Pashtuns, often called Pashtunwali. The term features prominently when civilian and military actors in Afghanistan discuss ways of engaging the civilian population […]

21 Mar 2011 Lutz Rzehak • Special Reports

Destruction is Rebuilding, or: Fare thee well, population-centric COIN

Words and deeds differ more and more in the US strategy in Afghanistan. A blogger made AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig think about her question ‘Is This What Population-centric Counterinsurgency Looks Like?’, remember some reports he read recently and conclude that the answer is ‘no’. Yesterday, we added a blogdescribing – and carrying a photo of […]

18 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • International Engagement

Guest Blog: Modernisation Stress – Kabul and Mazar Revisited

During his tenth trip to Afghanistan since 2003 dedicated to research on micro-social development and general political perceptions, after an interval of two and a half years, our guest blogger Michael Daxner(*) was ‘little surprised at the first glance – but at a closer look, much has changed’. Glimpses on social stratification, discussions about federalism, […]

16 Mar 2011 Michael Daxner • Economy, Development, Environment

Sal-e nau mubarak / Neway kal mubarak sha (amended)

The AAN Management Board wishes in particular all Afghan AAN team members, contributors, readers as well as all friends and partners a happy and more peaceful new year 1390. Let us all hope that the festival itself can be celebrated without disturbances (see text below) and continue to work together for peace and true reconciliation. […]

14 Mar 2011 AAN • admin • Events

Discussing the Taleban in the Age of Chatham House Rules

It is not easy to report on current events in our times when most conferences, workshops or seminars on Afghanistan with an interesting audience, including people with inside information, are held under Chatham House Rules. For those unfamiliar with this term: It means that you, as participant of such a meeting, can quote what was […]

11 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Reality off the records: Afghan civilian casualties and NATO’s narrative

Facts from the latest UN and AIHRC report: 2,777 Afghan civilians have been killed in 2010 – these are more than ever before since the US-led intervention started in 2001 and 15 per cent more than in 2009. Insurgents were held responsible for 75 per cent of these casualties, Afghan government and Western forces for […]

9 Mar 2011 Thomas Ruttig • War and Peace

Stories people tell (2): Bagram prison; not a single good day

There are so many stories of people who get caught up in the nightly operations by American and Afghan forces. In the search for ‘kill & capture’ targets the net is cast wide: once a door is kicked in all males in a household are usually taken for interrogation. And it is then anyone’s guess […]

9 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Rights and Freedoms

Sherzai Staying or Leaving? A Nangrahar Tug-of-War

Gul Agha Sherzai may well be satisfied with the ‘gold medal’ he has been awarded on Sunday by a local labour organization for his services. It could represent the final achievement of his long-lasting tenure as governor of Nangrahar province. After almost six years, many local powerbrokers in Eastern Afghanistan, and maybe himself too, seem […]

8 Mar 2011 Fabrizio Foschini • Political Landscape

When the police goes local; more on the Baghlan ALP

AAN returns to the story of the local police (ALP) of Baghlan and particularly the group of Hezb-e Islami fighters who, supported by the US Special Forces, had reconciled and become local police in summer 2010, and were decimated in a Taleban attack in September. Some locals have accused this group of committing crimes. Others […]

4 Mar 2011 Gran Hewad • Political Landscape

Guest Blog: Why the Buddhas of Bamian were destroyed

It would have been possible to save the Bamian Buddhas from destruction. But it was not an important enough issue for the western powers to intervene over. And the outsiders who did consider the Buddhas important were not prepared to contemplate the kind of intervention that might have worked. The Buddhas were abandoned, argues our […]

2 Mar 2011 Michael Semple • Context and Culture

Stories people tell (1): An attempted land grab, a fabricated case and an expensive release

There is much talk about corruption. How it undermines the government and erodes trust. How it weakens all efforts towards reform. How it makes people’s lives more complicated and miserable than they already are. But it is only when you are confronted with the wearying detail of what people have to go through, just to […]

2 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

‘Zoom In and You’ll See the Faces of Taleban’

Michael Yon travelled to Uruzgan to see what he could see. He is by his own description on “a long tour of Afghanistan” to discover what is going on in places where international forces have fought and died. Not a bad idea. These places are indeed “(n)ames that mean almost nothing to most people, but […]

1 Mar 2011 Martine van Bijlert • War and Peace

The Destruction of the Bamian Buddhas (2)

28 February 2000: The Taleban want to destroy all non-Islamic images of human beings in Afghanistan as ‘idols’. With this decision, they threaten the rich cultural heritage of their country. International experts react with horror. A contemporary article by Thomas Ruttig. The Quran bans all displays of human images because Allah – as the God […]

28 Feb 2011 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture