Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Reports

Reports – previously known as dispatches – are the flagship of the AAN website and our main type of publication. AAN reports are based on extensive desk and field research and provide timely and in-depth information and analysis.

A Son of Jaghori: Remembering Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, 1930-2026

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

For centuries, a steady stream of Afghan students have gone to the great Shia Islamic seminaries of Iran and Iraq in search of religious learning. Few rose as high as Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, who died in June 2026 at the age of 96. AAN’s Rohullah Suroush and Roxanna Shapour trace Fayyaz’s journey from a village […]

Context and Culture Read more

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

Migration Read more

Returning to Uncertainty: How Afghan returnees from Pakistan are struggling to rebuild their lives

Nur Khan Himmat • Jelena Bjelica •

Some six million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, almost half of them in 2025, making it one of the largest return movements of any nationality in recent decades. 2.26 million people returned from Pakistan, one million in 2025 alone, amid an intensifying deportation campaign launched in September 2023 […]

Migration Read more

Afghan Students in Pakistan: Lost dreams or a life in the shadows?  

Rama Mirzada •

Afghans studying in Pakistan had hoped they might avoid the collective expulsions that, since 2023, have upended life for over two million Afghans living there. However, as the scope of deportations has widened, students have found themselves unable to get study visas. Some have already been detained by Pakistani police and deported. Others have managed, […]

Regional Relations Read more

The Decline of Ashar: How collective labour is fading in rural Afghanistan

Sharif Akram •

For generations, the tradition of ashar – voluntary, unpaid communal labour – was one of the strongest expressions of solidarity in rural Afghan society. Whether harvesting a neighbour’s wheat, building a home or cleaning an irrigation canal, ashar bound together families, villages and tribes through reciprocal obligation. This tradition has sharply declined across much of southeastern Afghanistan […]

Context and Culture Read more

Can Afghanistan Feed Itself? Agriculture, trade and food security under pressure

Mhd Assem Mayar •

Afghanistan’s food system is under growing strain. Domestic harvests remain insufficient and uneven and trade routes have shifted repeatedly in recent years. This spring’s rainfall has been good enough for a forecast of a bumper wheat crop, but that belies the ruinous longer-term reality of the climate crisis and the more frequent droughts it is […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Holding the Line in Afghanistan: Women’s health in crisis and one NGO’s response 

Kate Clark • Fabrizio Foschini •

AAN has considered women’s health in Afghanistan from several angles in recent years, with bleak conclusions. We found provision for women living in rural areas under particular threat, with clinics closing, shortages of female health professionals and economic pressure making it difficult for families to afford transport to a clinic. In 2024, the Islamic Emirate […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

No Flamingos, but Ducks, Geese and Grebes: Afghanistan joins an international bird census 

Kate Clark •

The first survey of birds to be carried out by an Afghan organisation since the fall of the Islamic Republic has taken place. It was also the first time that Afghanistan has taken part in the annual International Waterbird Census, a global effort involving 189 countries. A volunteer team, including expert ornithologists, visited six wetland […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Practising Law Under the Emirate: Afghan defence lawyers fight for space in a transformed justice system 

Hamed Pakteen •

After the fall of the Islamic Republic, the newly empowered Islamic Emirate radically overhauled the courts and the criminal justice system, elevating sharia as the sole source of law, along with the mullah-judges who now interpret Islamic jurisprudence. Defence lawyers, whose role is to protect the interests of the accused, have been marginalised, their professional […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

When Your Back’s Against the Wall: The Shughnan Rebellion of 1925 in the memory of local people

Fabrizio Foschini •

An Afghan proverb, tang amad, ba jang amad sums up the circumstances which led to rebellion in a northeasterly corner of Afghanistan, the poor and isolated Shughnan district of Badakhshan province, a century ago: When your back is against the wall, you will fight back – no matter how weak your side and how unlikely your chances […]

Context and Culture Read more

Afghans in the UK: Uncertain times ahead 

Rachel Reid • Francesca Gilks •

Afghans in the UK who do not have permanent residency are facing years of insecurity and hardship amid a hardening of British immigration policy. Those who were granted refugee status within the last five years may face a lengthy wait before they get settled status under new policies proposed in November 2025 that are intended […]

Migration Read more

Breaking Point? The mounting conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan 

Fabrizio Foschini • Rachel Reid • Roxanna Shapour •

Over the past six months, the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has extended from low-level border skirmishes to talk of “open war.” Pakistan conducted its first-ever air strikes in Kabul in October 2025, targeting Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP) and, more recently, on 16 March 2026, bombed the city, killing more than 140 civilians. Islamabad, for the […]

War and Peace Read more

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