Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Thomas Ruttig

Nach Hochschulverbot: Afghanistan-Experte befürchtet komplettes Bildungsverbot für Frauen

RND, 22 December 2022 In this article published by the RND group of German newspapers, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted as saying that – after the Taleban ban of female students from Afghan universities –, it cannot be ruled out that rumours going around in Afghanistan that all girls school might be closed, too, become […]

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Gefährliches Halbwissen: Univerbot für afghanische Frauen

Tageszeitung, 22 December 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig looks at the Taleban’s total ban for women attending university and quotes various analyst on what the reason for this unique step may be (in German).

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Hamid Karzai is trying to find his place in the new Afghanistan

Washington Post, 22 December 2022 An article plus interview looking at former President Karzai holding out in Taleban-controlled Kabul, as some believe “biding his time” for another political role in h future, with his “strong relationships with the West, as well as with China, India, Russia and Iran.” Karzai, however, insists he has ‘no aspirations […]

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‘Let Afghan Girls Learn’

Indian Defence Review, 16 December 2022 This article quotes from older AAN research: While depriving the Afghan girls by sending them to schools, on the contrary, and as per the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report, more than two dozen top Taliban leaders are educating their daughters at schools in Doha, Peshawar and Karachi. The leaders […]

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AAN: Former President Ghani’s ‘Ethnicisation’ of Forces Pushed Collapse of Afghan State

Khaama, 15 December 2022 The independent Afghan news agency reports AAN’s latest report, “What Went Wrong: The 2021 collapse of Afghan National Security Forces”, by Timor Sharan: The collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the collapse of the Afghan state were attributed to Ghani’s strategy of “ethnicisation” and “politicization” of the security […]

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Fehler beim Afghanistan-Engagement bereits zu Beginn

Bundestag, 13. December 2022 Short summary at the website of German parliament about hearing in the Bundestag’s enquiry commission on Afghanistan focussing in this session on the 2001 Bonn conference, with a link to the testimony given there by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig (in German).

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Mawlawi Mehdi, insurgencia y dinámicas de poder en Afganistán

Atalayar, 8 November 2022 This analysis of the anti-Taleban uprising of erstwhile pro-Taleban (then killed) Hazara commander Maulawi Mehdi from Balkhab quoted from various AAN analyses authored by Thomas Ruttig (in Spanish).

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Francesc Vendrell obituary: Effective United Nations peace negotiator who brought about dialogue between warring parties in many international crises

The Guardian, 5 December 2022 Jonathan Steele’s obituary for head (in his last years) of AAN’s advisory board, an outstanding diplomat with outstanding achievements who, in his youth, was an activist against Franco’s dictatorship in his homeland Catalonia: disbanding of the CIA-backed “contras”; brokering a deal in El Salvador leading to a ceasefire and free […]

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FN-rapportør: »Talebanernes ledere lover én ting, men gør noget andet«

Politiken, 28 November 2022 The leading danish daily newspaper reports about a panel organised by the Danish Refugee Council in Copenhagen about the current political and human rights situation in Afghanistan, in which AAN’s Ehsan Qaane and Thomas Ruttig, the UN human rights rapporteur for Afghanstan, Richard Bennett, and migration scholar Liza Schuster participated (in […]

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[SIGAR Is] Blaming The Afghans One Last Time

Forever Wars, 22 November 2022 National-security reporter Spencer Ackerman looks at what he assumes could be the last SIGAR (“pronounced like the thing you smoke”) report, titled “Why Afghanistan’s Government Collapsed” , looks back at SIGAR’s entire reporting history and concludes: SIGAR told true stories about the trees while avoiding the forest – and the people trying […]

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Ground Zero: The Evacuation of the CIA’s Afghan Proxies Has Opened One of the War’s Blackest Boxes

The Intercept, 20 November 2022 Former BBC journalist Fahim Abed tackles a hot subject (regularly reported on by AAN, too), the role of CIA-led Afghan militias and commando forces, the so-called zero units, now evacuated to the US, regardless of (very plausible) allegations of severe human violations, if not war crimes – “celebrated as heroes […]

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In Afghanistan droht ein Rückfall in schlimmste Zeiten

SRF, 17 November 2022 Listen to the audio of Swiss radio interviewing AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the situation of women’s rights, the implementation of sharia punishments and other latest events in Afghanistan (in German).

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