AAN In The Media – June 2012

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The Taliban and Fear 
The Diplomat, 26 June 2012
The Indian blog, in an article by Sanjay Kumar, quotes from Thomas Ruttig’s AAN blog about the Taleban attack in Kargha.

Her er slakteren som overtar «norsk» provins
Dagbladet (Norway), 25 June 2012
In an article reporting Dostum tightening his grip over the northern province of Faryab, AAN’s Analytikeren Fabrizio Foschini is quoted as saying that ‘Atta har imagen til en politiker. Dostum er fremdeles en rufsete krigsherre, det kan komme til å avgjøre, men vi vet ikke i hvilken retning.’

Ein Zeichen der Stärke
tageszeitung (Berlin), 23 June 2012
Thomas Ruttig’s commentary on the Taleban attack on a restaurant in Kargha (in German), arguing that it shows that the Taleban have attacked a purely civilian target – deviating from their official political line -, that this signifies that their puritan tendency is still powerful but also that they have infrastructure -and possibly support – in place close to Kabul. (The headline is by taz; mine was ‘Return of the Puritans’).

Afghanistan: les talibans toujours plus forts
Libération, 22 June 2012
The French daily quotes from an AAN report: ‘Un tel niveau de pertes risque d’affaiblir un peu plus une armée déjà démotivée. Entre 30% et 40% des soldats afghans ne se réengagent pas une fois leur contrat achevé, selon un récent rapport du Réseau des analystes d’Afghanistan (AAN). Le taux de désertion atteint quant à lui environ 30%.’

‘Hotelangriff soll Verunsicherung schüren’
Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau (online), 22 June 2012
In this short interview (in German) about the nightly Taleban attack on a hotel in Kargha, just outside Kabul, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig argues that this type of attacks is not supposed to bring military victory to the Taleban but to fan insecurity among Afghans. It also shows that the Taleban seem to have a functioning infrastructure in place in or around Kabul. And it reiterates that the Taleban’s puritanical tendency, that likes to attack weddings and other social events, is still alive and kicking.

Afghan Forces Defeat Taliban Siege of Hotel
Voice of America, 22 June 2012
Fabrizio Foschini is quoted describing the value that attacks like that on the Spozhmai Hotel have for the insurgents.

Qargha Lake siege undercuts U.S.-led narrative that Afghanistan war is on track 
McClatchy Newspapers, 22 June 2012
Article discusses how ISAF sometimes overplays the role of Afghan forces and refers to AAN’s recent report: ‘A report this week by the respected Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research group, followed a U.S. military investigation into a Taliban attack in the southern province of Uruzgan last year that the analysts said revealed “the dismal, virtually negligible role of Afghan security forces. … Yet the press release from ISAF Public Affairs, published the day after the attack, gave a glutinously adulatory account of their actions.” The analysts’ report said that ISAF spokesmen had “continued to try to spin the story – claiming even recently that the counterattack had been ‘Afghan-led,’ when in fact, no Afghans were involved in it at all.” ‘

Dschihad darf nicht beleidigt werden
tageszeitung (Berlin), 20 June 2012
AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reports about the threat of a ban against the left-wing Solidarity Party.

Afghanistan suspends political party sparking fears over freedom of speech
Guardian, 14 June 2012
The Guardian picks up AAN’s report on the ban threatened against the small Solidarity Party, saying that: ‘Afghanistan has suspended a political party for the first time since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, a ban diplomats and activists say is a worrying sign freedoms in the country could suffer as western troops leave, taking funds and attention with them.’ And it quotes from Thomas Ruttig’s blog: ‘How this case will be handled by the Afghan authorities will show how much the rule of law in Afghanistan has evolved where, according to President Karzai’s speech at the NATO summit in Chicago, the ‘foundations of a vibrant democracy’ have already been laid.’

Svårt att bygga upp ett nytt Afghanistan
YLE (Finnish radio), 14 June 2012
The website of the Finnish TV summarises an interview with AAN’s Co-Director Thomas Ruttig in Helsinki’s UP Institute (in Swedish).

Angst vor Bürgerkrieg
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 12 June 2012
The influential Swiss daily takes an analytical view back on the NATO summit in Chicago and the transition strategy in Afghanistan, quoting from Barbara Stapleton’s AAN report ‘Beating a retreat’ – that ‘even if the transition won’t go optimally, Nato apparently will stick to this strategy […]. This means that Nato, for the likely case that its strategy does not work out, doesn’t have Plan B’.

Drohung gegen afghanische Linkspartei
Neues Deutschland (Berlin), 11 June 2012
AAN’s Thomas Ruttig reports about the ban that is threatening a leftist political party for demanding former mujahedin, Taleban and communist leaders brought to justice for war crimes.

Der Letzte macht das Licht aus: Der Westen flieht aus Afghanistan
Deutschlandradio, 8 June 2012
Listen to an hour-long discussion (in German) about the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, featuring AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, MP Roderich Kiesewetter, Christian Thiels (German TV correspondent for security affairs) and Tinko Weibezahl, representative of the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kabul.

Terms of internment
Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, 1 June 2012
Kate Clark’s AAN blog about the small print in the US-Afghan agreement on the handover of the US detention facility and its inmates in Bagram has been reprinted, slightly edited, here.

Das Ende der ISAF
Linke Zeitung, 1 June 2012
The German left-wing anti-war online paper quotes from Thomas Ruttig’s post-Chicago AAN blog and his article in Berlin daily taz.

‘Die Taliban warten einfach nur ab’
ARD (online), 1 June 2012
AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted on the webpage of Germany’s main TV broadcaster in a feature about the security situation in Afghanistan. She says that she as long as there are no serious negotiations with the insurgents, there will be no peace in the country and it can’t be excluded that civil breaks out again after 2014. She adds that she doesn’t believe that the Taleban can be defeated militarily.