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.

New UN Report Charts the Emirate’s Treatment of Detainees: Allegations of torture and ill-treatment

Kate Clark •

UNAMA has released its first report dedicated to the treatment of detainees since the Taleban takeover and alleges that the use of torture by the police and General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) is “systemic.” The report details methods of torture familiar to earlier generations of detainees – electric shocks, beating and suspension – but also […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Chinese Investments in Afghanistan: Strategic ecnomic move or incentive for the Emirate?

Thomas Ruttig •

When the West withdrew from Afghanistan, many assumed its acquisitive neighbour, China, would reap the economic benefits of the change of government in Kabul. Afghanistan has immense, but largely untouched mineral and hydrocarbon wealth, including strategically valuable metals, such as lithium. That assumption was fed in the first half of 2023 by a flurry of […]

Regional Relations Read more

The Daily Hustle: Crossing the Durand Line to visit family in Pakistan

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour •

The story of Afghan families is often one of loved ones separated by long distances and national borders. Every year, many Afghans who have family living in neighbouring countries make the hours and sometimes days-long journey overland from Afghanistan, braving long bus rides, hours waiting to cross borders and the demands for payment by border […]

Context and Culture Read more

A Taleban Theory of State: A review of the Chief Justice’s book of jurisprudence

John Butt •

In the second of our mini-series on Taleban publications, this report examines what may be the fullest and most authoritative account yet of what the Taleban believe an Islamic state should look like. In his book, ‘Al-Emarat al-Islamiya wa Nidhamuha’ (The Islamic Emirate and its System of Governance), the Islamic Emirate’s Chief Justice, Abdul Hakim […]

Political Landscape Read more

Extensive but not Inclusive: Afghanistan’s growing list of national holidays

Fabrizio Foschini •

August has already seen two days of national public holidays in Afghanistan and will see a third this week, celebrating the anniversary of the departure of the last United States troops on the 31st. That follows the celebration of Taleban forces’ entry into Kabul on 15 August 2021, which sealed the fate of the Islamic […]

Context and Culture Read more

What Do Young Afghan Women Do? A glimpse into everyday life after the bans

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Since coming to power, the Taleban authorities have issued many edicts, decrees, declarations and directives limiting, restricting, suspending or banning basic freedoms for women and girls. Afghan women are no longer free to go to public parks, gyms and other public spaces and are banned from boarding planes and leaving the country on their own; they cannot […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more
An American flag seen through a broken window from inside a vacant airplane hangar used by the media at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (picture reviewed by US military). Photo: Brennan Linsley/Pool/AFP, 16 July 2009.

The Last Afghan in Guantanamo: Pressure mounts on US to deal with the remnants of its ‘War on Terror’ 

Kate Clark •

It is more than three years since the United States signed its peace deal with the Taleban and almost two since the last American soldier left Afghanistan. Yet the US still insists that the last Afghan it holds in relation to that war – at its prison camp in Guantanamo – would be a threat […]

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The Emergent Taleban-Defined University: Enforcing a top-down reorientation and unquestioning obedience under ‘a war of thoughts’

S Reza Kazemi •

Since the takeover around two years ago in August 2021, the Taleban have sought to overhaul and reinvent Afghanistan’s higher education. They have put their affiliates in charge at the ministry and many public universities, created new bodies to promote religious institutions and incorporate them into the higher education system and reshaped curricula with a […]

Political Landscape Read more

Taleban Perceptions of Aid: Conspiracy, corruption and miscommunication

Sabawoon Samim • Ashley Jackson •

Despite publicly claiming to welcome international aid, the Taleban government has exercised a growing influence over humanitarian operations within Afghanistan at both national and local levels. This includes bans on women working for NGOs and the United Nations and, more recently, an order to hand over all internationally funded education projects to the Ministry of […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

The Daily Hustle: Women take to street peddling to feed their families

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Roxanna Shapour •

After the Taleban came to power in August 2021, the flow of international funds into the country that helped prop up the economy declined precipitously, and a significant number of people lost their jobs. Women, facing new legal restrictions on work from the Islamic Emirate, have been hit disproportionately hard by unemployment. With few options […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

From Land-grabbing to Haircuts: The decrees and edicts of the Taleban supreme leader 

Kate Clark •

The decrees, edicts and instructions of Taleban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, from 2016, when he became leader, to May 2023, have been published. They make fascinating reading, tracing some of what the leadership felt was important to ban, make obligatory, organise or administer during the insurgency and since recapturing power. Some themes are repeated […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

No Food For Hope: Afghanistan’s Child Malnutrition Dilemma in 2023

Fabrizio Foschini • Rohullah Sorush •

The time of the summer harvest has come, bringing with it some temporary relief to millions of Afghan households struggling to feed themselves. Standards of living, which had already worsened well before the Taleban takeover of August 2021, plunged further with their capture of power and the resulting economic collapse. The impact was most keenly […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

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