AREU, 1 December 2019 Initially presented as a drug control project, the Helmand Food Zone came to be accredited for supporting stabilisation and governance in the Helmand province between 2008 and 2012. Driven by political demands rather than evidence, the programme became a flagship in Helmand, and lauded as a success, despite evidence to the […]
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Tageszeitung, 21 January 2020 A long reportage from Afghanistan’s fight against polio (in German), pointing out a number of problems: the hard job of local volunteers, among them women, but also cheating in the reporting on their campaign; a UN official who argues for stopping all funding for the campaign as long as there was […]
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USA Today, 1 January 2020 Published on a day where not many people would have read a story about an atrocity in Afghanistan, this story deserves a careful read: about the Americans bombing a village to kill a Taleban commander linked to feuding local commanders who had been hired by a (then) British security company […]
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USA Today, 1 January 2020 A new and insightful USA Today report shines an overdue spotlight on the lack of accountability of US military personnel, and the hollowness of their repeated denials of the extent of the death and destruction inflicted on the village of Azizabad close to the Shindand air base, Herat province, western […]
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Tasks and Purpose, 9 December 2019 On top of the Afghanistan war casualty figures de-classified by a move of the Washington Post, here more figures from a often overlooked category of actors in that war.
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Just Security (blog), 27 November 2019 Former AAN colleague Qayoom Suroush writes, following up on Human Rights Watch’s recent report “’They’ve Shot Many Like This’: Abusive Night Raids by CIA-Backed Afghan Strike Forces”: The government has pledged to investigate the allegations. (…) The Afghan government established the Civilian Casualties Prevention and Mitigation Board in May 2016 […]
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Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organisation & medico international, 27 November 2019 AHRDO, an Afghan human rights organisation, has conducted semi-structured interviews with 50 returnees and deportees from Europe in four regional centres of Afghanistan – Balkh, Kabul, Herat and Nangarhar – as well as with. Research interviews 20 civil society and human rights activists […]
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USIP, 19 November 2019 Interesting new report about the Taleban’s policy making by Ashley Jackson and TLO’s Rahmatullah Amiri, with focusses on education, health and complaints and civilian casualties. Particularly interesting the account of regional differences in the implementation of Taleban leadership policies (or lack thereof).
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Eurasianet, 8 November 2019 On 6 November, a 20-strong armed group masked individuals assaulted a border outpost at the Tajik-Uzbek border, according to Tajikistan’s authorities. It claimed the group had crossed over from Afghanistan’s Qala-ye Zal district of Kunduz province which was rejected by Afghan military officials in Kabul. The Russian and other governments used the report to […]
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The New Yorker, 28 October 2019 “Trump upended peace talks. Civilian casualties keep climbing. After eighteen years of war, Afghans are suffering more than ever.” A tour-de-force about Afghanistan’s present: a refugee boy-turned-Taleb-turned-IS fighter-turned reconcilee; Achin militiamen; victims of the N.D.S./C.I.A. “hybrid units” which are “N.D.S. in name only” in Sherzad, Nangrahar. Doha talks, elections, women talking to the […]
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New York Times, 25 October 2019 “The heart is like a mirror,” Mr. Wujodi said. “If it is cleansed of the dust and fog, whichever way or object you aim it at the reflection of it would be reflected in the mirror.” A lovely reportage by Mujib Mashal about Haidari Wujodi, a Sufi poet-librarian, who has […]
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Human Rights Watch, 7 October 2019 On the day the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan was started exactly 18 years ago, the human rights organisation says the Afghan government and international donors are failing in providing mental health services to a heavily traumatised population: Forty-one years of war have had a devastating impact on the […]
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