Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Thomas Ruttig

Blaming the Afghan War Failure on — Russia

Thomas Ruttig •

Global Research, 1 November 2017 The Canada-based Centre of Research on Globalization quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on recent media reports that Russia had supplied weapons to the Taleban: But many of the Russian weapons in the hands of the Taliban date back to Russia’s own misadventure in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to one small […]

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Anschlag in Kabul

Thomas Ruttig •

Tageszeitung, 1 November 2017 Op-ed by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in the Berlin daily, summarising the details of the IS-claimed terrorist attack in Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan before an RTA office and raises the question what the IS claim of responsibility is worth, given that the Taleban declared employees of two Tv stations (1TV and Tolo) […]

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The Fence Driving a Wedge Between Pakistan and Afghanistan

AAN •

Bloomberg, 31 October 2017 In this article, the AAN dispatch by Fazal Muzhary is quoted for background: There are 235 crossing points, some frequently used by militants and drug traffickers, of which 18 can be accessed by vehicles, according to a report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network research group last month. The Taliban are used […]

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The Man Who Thought He Could Fix Afghanistan

AAN •

Politico, 30 October 2017 (Nov/Dec. issue) A portrait of “Ghani’s Ghani” – senior advisor Scott Guggenheim – by great May Jeong, with some (given his position) interesting insights: “A decade and a half of American occupation, Guggenheim continued, produced “democratic institutions with the outward appearance of a democracy, but all about patronage,” he told me. […]

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Murder of a president: How India and the UN mucked up completely in Afghanistan [on Najibullah]

AAN •

Quartz India, 30 October 2017 A history piece: How India did not save former President Najibullah – new stuff.

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Wie ein afghanischer Aufständischer den Krieg am Hindukusch sieht

AAN •

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 27 October 2017 In the Swiss daily, recent AAN guest contributor Franz J. Marty describes (in German) how he talked with a Taleban group commander in Nangrahar province who  – not a singular case, as Marty says – convinced him that the Taleban are not willing to negotiate. He also quotes AAN’s […]

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Afghan Shiites under attack as IS seeks to stir up sectarian violence

AAN •

AFP/Daily Mail, 27 October 2017 AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted her on Afghans’ resilience against IS attacks on Shias: … observers such as Kate Clark, a senior analyst at the Afghanistan Analysts Network, believe Afghans will continue to resist IS efforts to spark sectarian violence. “In Afghanistan most areas have been through really nasty communal […]

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Violence is so bad in parts of Afghanistan that Red Cross clinics are shutting their doors

AAN •

Washington Post, 26 October 2017 On this article about the ICRC forced to wind down its activities in Afghanistan by worsening security, AAN’s Obaid Ali is quoted: … smaller renegade groups — some of whom claim affiliation with the Islamic State — have taken hold in areas not under firm control of the government or […]

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How Taliban are evolving to compete in Afghanistan

AAN •

Christian Science Monitor, 26 October 2017 In a report about an Afghan policeman in Logar pressure by the Taleban to qit his job, AAN’s Obaid Ali is extensively quoted about the changing character of the Taleban movement: “This new generation is of course different from the Taliban of the 1990s,” says Obaid Ali, an insurgency […]

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Als wäre nichts gewesen: Nächster Abschiebeflug nach Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

Neues Deutschland, 25. Oktober 2017 Reporting the latest German deportation flight to Afghanistan, the author uses a quote from AAN’s Thomas Ruttig (from his German blog Afghanistan Zhaghdablai) as his conclusion, saving that some of the deportees were from provinces even the German government considers unsafe and the the decision to deport was “to sell […]

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The Weaponization of Nostalgia: How Afghan Miniskirts Became the Latest Salvo in the War on Terror

AAN •

Ajam Media Collective, 23 October 2017 (article originally appeared on 9 September 2017) Alex Shams, an Iranian-American writer and a PhD student of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, takes a look at the report that US national security adviser McMaster showed Donald Trump 1970s-era photos of Afghan women wearing miniskirts in order to convince him […]

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Shiite Afghans worship at own risk

AAN •

Albuquerque Journal/Los Angeles Times, 22 October 2017 Reporting the latest attacks on Shia mosques in Afghanistan, this article’s authors quote twice from recent AAN analysis: But since 2011, the annual Shiite religious festival of Ashura has been attacked almost every year, according to the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based research organization. (…) In a paper […]

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