Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Thomas Ruttig

With a Little Help From His Friends: A new biography of Hamed Karzai

Thomas Ruttig •

With only a few days left in the last of Karzai’s two 5-year tenures as head of state (the inauguration of his – still unknown – successor has just been postponed again), Dutch journalist Bette Dam presents the reviewed and updated English version of her biography of the politician who has shaped Afghanistan’s last 14 […]

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Can Afghanistan Survive Its Presidential Election?

AAN •

Eurasia Review (FPRI), 1 September 2014 This analysis of the Afghan presidential elections draws on several AAN dispatches and the compilation “Key Documents underwriting the electoral agreement” as sources.

AAN in the Media Read more

Takhar gold mine contract seen as illegal

AAN •

Pajhwok Afghan News, 28 August 2014 Afghan mining watch organisatione Integrity Watch alleges that the contract for the Nuraba and Semti gold mines in the Chahab district of Takhar province has been awarded on the basis of favoritism and in a non-transparent manner. According to the organisation, the contract signed by former mining minister Wahidullah Shahrani and and […]

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Artilleriefeuer vor den Toren von Kundus: Vormarsch der Taliban

AAN •

Frankfurter Allgemeine, 28 August 2014 Friederike Böge’s article about the Taleban gains in Kunduz city quotes from AAN’s dispatch: the districts of Char Darah and Khanabad are „almost completely under Taleban controll“ and are almost as close to taking the city as in 1997.

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Afghanistan im politischen Vakuum

AAN •

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24 August 2014 In this article on the pre-election mood in Afghanistan, AAN’s Martine van Bijlert is quoted: “Das Ego der beiden Kandidaten ist laut Martine van Bijlert vom Afghanistan Analysts Network, einem unabhängigen Think-Tank in Kabul, aber nicht das grösste Problem. Ghani und Abdullah könnten sich durchaus auf einen Kompromiss einigen, […]

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Afghans Laud, Rights Groups Concerned By ‘Take No Prisoners’ Orders

AAN •

RFE/RL, 24 August 2014 Frud Bezhan looks at instructions to the Afghan security forces to kill militants on the battlefield instead of taking them prisoner and transferring them for prosecution. HRW’s Patricia Gossman, also an AAN member, says: “When Afghan forces are fighting the Taliban then the militants are military targets and there is no legal issue. It’s once […]

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FP’s Situation Report

AAN •

Foreign Policy, 20 August 2014 Foreign Policy’s 20 August situation report quotes extensively from Martine van Bijlert’s AAN dispatch “Solving audit problems by creating new ones”-

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Last Tango in Kabul

AAN •

Rolling Stone, 18 August 2014 Matthieu Aikins looking at how life has been developing for expats, and mainly journalists, in Kabul and how the are influenced by a string of killings. It has quotes from two AAN people, Kate Clark and Borhan Osman: “It’s very easy to kill foreign civilians in Kabul,” says Kate Clark, […]

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Kabul cafe is a front line in a war over culture and social mores in Afghanistan



AAN •

Washington Post, 15 August 2014 Pam Constable about the strange, almost Taleban-style police raid against Kabul’s Art Cafe and Restaurant, a famous hangout for Kabul’s youth, during which young women and men were harassed and abused – and local protests against it. She points to social tensions as result of modernisation and quotes an Islamic scholar who […]

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Elections 2014 (44): Key documents underwriting the electoral agreement

Martine van Bijlert •

To provide background to the recent agreement between the two presidential candidates brokered by US Secretary of State John Kerry (see here and here), AAN has gathered the texts of relevant statements in one place. These include, first and foremost, the joint declaration agreed and signed by both candidates on 8 August 2014, as well […]

Political Landscape Read more

Why the Afghan election still isn’t over

AAN •

Washington Post (blog), 12 August 2014 An AAN dispatch is quoted in this article trying to answer the question in the headline: A report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) wrote that “timelines appear to have trumped transparency and rigor.” They conclude, “Interestingly, we have now reached the end of the first round, without a […]

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Trying to Stop the Bases: Another opposition block in the making?

Thomas Ruttig •

A political front composed of traditional mujahedin and neo-Islamist groups that oppose any foreign military presence has raised objections to the plan to establish a ‘national unity government’. It rather proposes setting up an ‘inclusive’ government, which would also involve the main insurgent groups, in order to end the war and then to hold fresh […]

Political Landscape Read more

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