Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Thomas Ruttig

Das nächste Desaster: Naturkatastrophe in Afghanistan

Tageszeitung, 22 June 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig writes in the Berlin-based daily about the heavy earthquake this morning in Afghanistan’s southeast, the Taleban and international response, with a short aside on UN-Taleban relations after two ministers did not get their travel exemption renewed by the Security Council, apparently an answer to the misogynist policies of […]

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We’re convicted of being women, says newsreader ordered by Taliban to cover face

Daily Telegraph, 15 June 2022 This article in the daily quotes from recent AAN research about how Afghan women deal with and think about the Taleban’s ‘burqa decree’: Recent research by the Afghanistan Analysts Network found widespread variation across the country in how women were adapting to the new rule and whether local Taliban officials […]

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«They Have Their Rulers in Kabul, We Rule Ourselves Here»: An Example of Local Self-Governance in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan

SIGA, 14 June 2022 A very insightful report from Nuristan by Swiss Franz Marty for the Swiss Institute for Global Affairs, reflecting the still existing diversity even in Taleban-dominated Afghanistan. It shows that even some pre-Islamic institutions of self rule seem to have survived in parts of the province, of course now in ‘Islamic’ disguise.

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Viele Ortskräfte sollten ausgeflogen werden – Familie Jabari hat es geschafft

RTL, 8 June 2022 A quote from AAN’s Thomas Ruttig in this clip (starting at 2:44min) on the private RTL TV network (video and transcript, in German): Thomas Ruttig vom Afghanistan Analyst Network ist überzeugt, dass es auf lange Sicht nur die Menschen in Afghanistan selbst schaffen, die Taliban zu verdrängen. Doch das könnte noch […]

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Los talibanes juegan con la confusión por anular a las mujeres en Afganistán

Diari ARA, 23 May 2022 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig is quoted in this article by long-time Spanish Afghanistan correspondent Mònica Bernabé (in Spanish and Catalan): “No está claro en qué sectores las mujeres pueden trabajar y en cuáles no”, destaca Thomas Ruttig, cofundador del think tank Afghanistan Analysts Network y posiblemente una de las personas que mejor conoce […]

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Kein weibliches Gesicht mehr im TV

Tageszeitung, 23 May 2022 Op-ed by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig after the Taleban decision that also women on TV have to cover their face and their closure of several new governmental and semi-governmental institutions established after 2001, such as th human rights commission and the National Security Council (in German).

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The Taliban government has proved surprisingly good at raising money

The Economist, 20 May 2022 One reason for their success is that they have plenty of experience collecting taxes. During their two decades as a rebel army, they collected traditional tithes, such as oshr, a share of farmers’ harvests, and zakat, religious alms, in areas under their control. (…) Second, the Taliban have kept official revenues flowing. A […]

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Worst Fears Of Iranian Dissidents In Afghanistan Realized After Arrests, Killing

RFE, 20 May 2022 An overlooked aspect of the Taleban takeover of power: danger for non-Afghan political refugees to become victims of the regime change.

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Green Energy Complicates the Taliban’s New Battle Against Opium

New York Times, 29 May 2022 A quote from recent AAN research: “The cultivation of opium and export of opiates is hugely important for the Afghan economy as a whole, and any implementation of the ban will have wide-ranging consequences,” the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent research group, wrote in a report last month.

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Taliban orders Afghan women to cover their faces in public

al-Jazeera, 7 May 2022 AAN’s Kate Clark is quoted here as saying on the Taleban’s ‘burqa edict’: “Many months into their reign of power in Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed one of the most iconic aspect of their rule from the 1990s, which is forcing women to cover their faces in public, and it’s clearly […]

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Taliban swap guns for pens to learn about human rights

The Guardian, 3 May 2022 A pretty unexpected reportage from Kandahar where the human rights NGO Geneva Call holds international humanitarian law courses for young Taleban. One says he has learned there to respect the dignity of prisoners which, he said, he was not aware that this should be done – after 8 years in […]

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