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.

Traditional Loya Jirga 2: Not Sellers of the nation – but lions! (amended)

Kate Clark •

President Hamed Karzai flew in by helicopter the few kilometres from his palace to the site of the ‘Traditional Loya Jirga’. He said later in his speech that he had been impressed to see just how much Kabul had grown and developed. He arrived to give the opening speech of the jirga to the two […]

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Innovative Jirga-ism 2 or: The rule of bending the law

Thomas Ruttig •

The 2030 jirga delegates have come into town now, and their sessions are to start today (Wednesday). Interestingly enough, it had been unclear until recently, at least to some people, how exactly the event was called they are to attend. This has repercussions to which authorities the meeting will have exactly – an issue still […]

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Traditional Loya Jirga 1: Why the Jirga?

Kate Clark •

More than two thousand delegates have gathered in Kabul for the ‘Traditional Loya Jirga’. Business in the Afghan capital has stopped, the major east-west arteries have been blocked, check points set up all over and at least some of those living near the site itself are in lock-down. The jirga is to discuss two items: […]

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Guest Blog: The Recovery of Afghanistan’s Regional Music

John Baily •

For some years, the Afghan music scene has been dominated by a new fast dance style which uses keyboards and other western instruments and developed in the Afghan diaspora at a time when music in Afghanistan itself was under extreme pressure. It looked like the new pop music was flourishing at the expense of the […]

Context and Culture Read more

2001 Ten Years On (2): Getting Home to Kabul

Shoaib Sharifi •

While Kabul was falling to the Northern Alliance ten years ago, a young Kabuli journalist found himself in the Taleban heartland of Kandahar trying to get home. He had to head against the tide of Taleban fighters who were all streaming southwards. Our guest blogger, Shoaib Sharifi, said that everyone feared for their lives as […]

War and Peace Read more

2001 Ten Years On (1): How the Taleban fled Kabul (amended)

Kate Clark •

It is ten years since Taleban-controlled Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance after just five weeks of US bombing. AAN’s Kate Clark, then the BBC correspondent, had been expelled from Kabul in March 2001 over reporting on the Taleban’s destruction of the Buddha statues in Bamyan and had spent eight months based in Islamabad. She […]

War and Peace Read more

Pakistan: There Is Also Good News

Ann Wilkens •

Disturbing news is coming out of Pakistan at such a pace that one item tends to crowd out the other. For example, how much of a mark have the millions of flood-stricken, homeless people in the Indus delta left on the international media scene? Even in Pakistan itself, their fate is not prominent any more. […]

Regional Relations Read more

Guest Blog: ‘I have read about it…’ A day of Afghan concerns in Germany

Michael Daxner •

In the run-up to the Bonn 2 conference, the debate on Afghanistan is flaring up again in Germany. But not only in Germany, there seem to be two Afghanistans that are discussed. Our guest author Michael Daxner* has looked at one day of this debate, with a conference and radio programme on 4 November, points […]

International Engagement Read more

Guest Blog: Right and Justice Party – possible trail-blazer for an Afghan centrism (AMENDED)

Ahmad Shuja •

We have already reported about the latest addition to the Afghan political party landscape, Hezb-e Haq wa Edalat (Right and Justice Party), which had been launched in Kabul on 3 November. This is an Afghan take on the new party, by our guest blogger Ahmad Shuja* who argues that it is stepping into new territory […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Two Eid messages from the Warring Leaders

Kate Clark •

Both General Allen, overall ISAF commander, and Mulla Omar, supreme Taleban leader, have issued messages of felicitations to Afghans for Eid ul-Adha. They make interesting reading. Allen, in a message which rivals Omar’s in terms of Islamic references, appeals to the Taleban to stop fighting and urges the Afghan people to continue standing ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with […]

War and Peace Read more

The upcoming jirga: an agenda with possible backdoors

Thomas Ruttig •

Less than two weeks to go to the opening of the long-awaited Traditional Loya Jirga. This meeting of 2030 delegates from all 34 provinces will discuss the strategic US-Afghan agreement and the future approach to reconciliation with the Taleban. About the rest – from its composition to its exact agenda and its authority – there […]

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Right and Justice Party launched, as ‘reformist opposition’

Thomas Ruttig •

This is the most serious addition to Afghanistan’s political party scene since years: After 14 months of preparations and a two-day conference of its 420 founders on Tuesday and Wednesday, Hezb-e Haq wa Edalat (Right and Justice Party) officially ‘declared its existence’, as you do such things in Afghanistan, today, 3 November, in Kabul. With […]

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