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.

Smoke signals about a new Afghan cabinet in the making

Thomas Ruttig •

Kabul’s rumour mill is up to speed again on the issue of a possible – and necessary – cabinet reshuffle. President Karzai has for months been working with a rump cabinet with seven acting ministers. It has now been confirmed from within the parliament that four names have been submitted for a new vote, all […]

Political Landscape Read more

Towards a More United Voice of Civil Society

Fabrizio Foschini •

During the last months, AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini has had the chance to follow closely the process leading to the formation of a network of Afghan civil society organisations, its path to a two-day conference in Kabul, and its plans for future initiatives. ‘On one thing I don’t agree with my colleagues: this is not the […]

Political Landscape Read more

(Former) Red Lines and Blue Helmets: More on the Century Foundation report

Barbara Stapleton •

AAN continues commenting on the Century Foundation’s Afghanistan Task Force report on ‘Negotiating Peace’. Today, Barbara J. Stapleton(*) points to the issue of (non-)permanent US bases in Afghanistan, to Hillary Clinton’s Asia Society speech that turned ‘red lines’ into an ’end state’, to Pakistan’s role and to the idea to deploy UN blue helmets after […]

International Engagement Read more
Celebrating Nawruz in Mazar-e Sharif, 2005 (Photo: Thomas Ruttig)

The Dead of Mazar

Thomas Ruttig •

Today, our thoughts are with the UN colleagues who were killed in Mazar-e Sharif yesterday and also with the Afghans killed there(*), not knowing whether they had just been using their constitutional right to demonstrate or indeed had murder in their hearts. And we hope that Pastor Jones in Gainesville, Florida, had a sleepless night, […]

International Engagement Read more

First Flickers of an Afghan Facebook Reform Movement

Gran Hewad •

After the revolution in Egypt and Tunisia in which Facebook played a key role, young Afghan Facebook users have started to establish their own pages to organise anti-government protest. They have chosen corruption and reform as their rallying issues. AAN’s Gran Hewad went to the first press conference of one of the reformist groupings but […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Guest Blog: A former Afghanistan jihadi in Libya’s revolution

Christopher Reuter •

Our guest blogger Christoph Reuter(*) has met a former Afghanistan fighter in the liberated city of Darnah and found that Libya’s Islamists do not need a jihadi valve anymore. They even do not attempt to hijack the Libyan revolution – which is secular in character, like the ones in Egypt and Tunisia. When about a […]

War and Peace Read more

Flash from the Past: An Alternative to the Taleban?

Thomas Ruttig •

A former Pakistani general pulled new strings in Afghanistan’s conflict in the summer of 2000, trying to set up a Pakistani-controlled ‘anti’ or ‘neo-Taleban’ force. It was to get rid of the increasingly discredited Mulla Omar, safeguard the alliance with the US – and Pakistan’s influence on Afghanistan. The plan failed, or was abandoned – […]

War and Peace Read more

The Survival of the Private Security Companies

Martine van Bijlert •

“As we move towards the transition process, all foreign parallel functions and institutions including private security firms, the PRTs, existence of the militias, detention of Afghan citizens by foreign forces and arbitrary house searches must stop immediately.” – Karzai’s speech on 23 March 2011, announcing the first phase of the Enteqal process. There are a […]

War and Peace Read more

White mountains, White City

Thomas Ruttig •

On his first day in Kabul again after some time in Europe, AAN’s Thomas Ruttig finds spring scents and dust on the tongue in the Afghan capital, and the two universes – that of Afghans and that of the expat community – fully intact: one picknicking, the other one in ‘White City’ lock-down. Back to […]

Context and Culture Read more

The Enteqal Seven (1): A Nowruz chakar to Bamian

Fabrizio Foschini •

Spring is here again. With the first warmth, AAN staff starts its occasional migration to higher pastures, Bamian in this case. The Nowruz holidays offer a much appreciated opportunity (and the announcement of Bamian as one of the first seven areas where Afghan security forces will take over from July onwards) to do so without […]

Political Landscape Read more

It Needs Two to Talk: Reading the Century Foundation report

Thomas Ruttig •

Today, the US-based Century Foundation (TCF) came out with a comprehensive report containing a set of proposals on ‘Negotiating Peace’ in Afghanistan. It is not the first – and won’t be the last – paper of this kind but, with Brahimi and Pickering as co-chairs of this Task Force and Vendrell, Guehenno and others on […]

War and Peace Read more

Talking about peace talks; a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions

Martine van Bijlert •

For a while now I have been feeling uneasy over the direction the debate on ‘talking to the Taleban’ is taking. The more I listen to conversation about reaching some kind of settlement, the more I feel as if I am wading into a morass of misunderstandings and abstractions, with a potentially dangerous level of […]

War and Peace Read more

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