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.

Protests and Factional Conflict in Sarepul

Thomas Ruttig •

Since 8 December last year, demonstrations are continuing in Sarepul. While this remote northern province has been one of the areas least affected by the insurgency for many years, of late it has been pulled into the vortex of the Northern insurgency, too. But the protests have a different background: their origins lie in local […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Talks Have Not Stopped Killing of Afghan Civilians

Kate Clark •

The number of Afghan civilians being killed in the war has risen yet again, according to UNAMA’s yearly assessment of civilian casualties for 2011. The eight per cent increase since 2010 (25 per cent increase since 2009) is largely due to the actions of ‘anti-government elements’, as the UN refers to the insurgents who are, […]

War and Peace Read more

Women and Reconciliation (4): A Response to Anatol Lieven’s Afghan Books Review

Sari Kouvo •

Never propose a political system or solution for anybody that you could not live with yourself, not even for women. AAN’s Sari Kouvo comments on Anatol Lieven’s review ‘Afghanistan: The Best Way to Peace’ in the February 2012 issue of the New York Review of Books and notes that Lieven’s ‘best way’ for women is […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

The Emperor’s New Clothes: The leaked NATO report on the Taleban

Kate Clark •

The BBC and The Times have obtained a classified NATO assessment of the Taleban. The leaked report, which has made headline news, has informed us that NATO thinks Pakistan is supporting the Taleban, that the Taleban are defiant and enjoy widespread support, that Afghans frequently prefer them to their corrupt government and that Afghan government […]

Regional Relations Read more

Talks on Two Channels? The Qatar office and Karzai’s Saudi option

Thomas Ruttig •

The latest reports about developments on reconciliation – or better: talks with insurgent groups, both with the Taleban and Hezb-e Islami* – have been rather contradictory. Or haven’t they? The main insight from these reports, is that President Karzai has only rhetorically bowed to the unilateral US/German thrust to establish a Taleban liaison office in […]

War and Peace Read more

What Next for the AIHRC (2): Civil Society Responses

Sari Kouvo •

When three of the nine members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) were removed by President Hamed Karzai in December, it laid bare the fragile position of human rights activism in Afghanistan. In AAN’s second blog* on the removal of the AIHRC Commissioners, Sari Kouvo takes a look at how the President’s move […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Talking and Killing in Early 2012

Kate Clark •

A series of suicide attacks have left dozens of people killed and injured in the last few days in southern Afghanistan. There was inevitable carnage among civilians when suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowded bazaar in Helmand on Wednesday (18 January) and at the entrance to the NATO base in Kandahar on Thursday. […]

War and Peace Read more

A Katanga Scenario for Afghanistan? (amended)

Thomas Ruttig •

When former Northern Alliance leaders met with a group of influential US congressmen and businessmen in Berlin in early January, the meeting made a lot of waves in Kabul, because it created the impression that a broad anti-Karzai alliance was in the making and that it had started to muster support in the US. Furthermore, […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Striking at Kabul, now and then

Fabrizio Foschini •

The start of a new year is always an opportunity for reflection. 2011 was not the first and will probably not be the last year that drew to a close amid violence in Kabul. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini takes a historical look at how the conflict has reached inside the gates of the Afghan capital in […]

War and Peace Read more

Guest blog: The logic of bandit life: From 20th century Chinese bandits to the contemporary Afghan insurgency

Deedee Derksen •

Chinese bandits never cleaned their guns before noon. That could lead to an attack by the enemy. They didn’t say ‘tiger’ or ‘spirit’, as these words would bring bad luck. Socks were ‘smelly tubes’, bullets ‘white rice’, and they called giving up banditry ‘washing their hands’. Deedee Derksen reads ‘Bandits in Republican China’ by Phil […]

Context and Culture Read more

National Coalition vs National Front: Two opposition alliances put Jamiat in a dilemma

Thomas Ruttig •

And yet another opposition alliance, but not a really new one. Before Christmas, Dr Abdullah Abdullah extended his own Hope and Change alliance with a few more political parties and politicians. It was renamed the National Coalition of Afghanistan (NCA). Apparently, Abdullah is trying to make it look more like a real coalition and less […]

Political Landscape Read more

A Year-Ender: The Dummies’ Guide to the Geneva Conventions

Susanne Schmeidl •

While the Taleban have been stepping up their assassination campaign in the past year, another worrying development occurred: There were several cases of international forces, Special Forces in particular, entering NGO-run clinics on pursuit of alleged insurgents, bullying medical staff for treating insurgents or using clinics temporarily as bases. This clearly violates the Geneva Conventions. […]

International Engagement Read more

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