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.

Ten Dead in Badakhshan (2)

Christopher Reuter • Michael Semple •

We follow up our reporting on the murder of ten aid workers on Thursday with two contributions from guest authors, Michael Semple and Christoph Reuter (1). They shed more light on three of the victims, Dan Terry, Daniela Beyer and Karen Woo; Michael additionally analyses the status of the insurgency in the area the killings […]

War and Peace Read more

Ten Dead in Badakhshan (UPDATED)

Kate Clark •

Among the party of Afghans and foreigners returning from holding an eye camp for communities in Nuristan and murdered on their way back in Badakhshan were several known to many in AAN. We grieve with their families and friends. Read an obituary by our Senior Analyst Kate Clark (with updates at the end of the […]

War and Peace Read more

Pakistani Anger with WikiLeaks

Karl Fischer • Ulrike Schulz •

Pakistan has remarkably free media. However, this freedom has been limited on a few subjects. Journalists would not touch the Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan during the ‘jihad’ against the Soviet occupation in a critical way, for example. It looked as if the ISI often was dictating the leaders on this subject in at least some […]

Regional Relations Read more

Afghanistan is (still) not Iraq

Kate Clark •

One of the monsters thought to be slain has raised one of its ugly heads again: the ‘let’s replicate our Iraq success in Afghanistan’ discussion, seasoned with ‘yes we know Afghanistan is not Iraq but…’ attachments. See the surge that supposedly has brought a decrease of violence in Baghdad and elsewhere and has been replicated […]

International Engagement Read more

Justice in Afghanistan: the Insect and the Elephant

Gran Hewad •

AAN political researcher Gran Hewad attended this week’s opening event of the ‘National Campaign on Supporting Justice in Afghanistan’. He visited the tents, watched the audience and reminisces about the war and the chances of establishing justice. The ‘National Campaign on Supporting Justice in Afghanistan’ is the title of a six day open gathering taking […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Campaign trail (3): the candidates and their strategies

Martine van Bijlert •

While half of the world is on holiday and the other half is going through the wiki-leaked documents or is wondering how to follow-up on the successes of the Kabul conference, the electoral campaign in Afghanistan is going ahead – at least in parts of the country. The cities are covered in posters and banners, […]

Political Landscape Read more

Wikileaks, Strategic Communications and (Im-)Plausible Denials

Thomas Ruttig •

Wikileaks, with its publication of some 75,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on Sunday, has brilliantly made use of the summer slump. Instead of escaped crocodiles at lakes popular with swimmers (a favourite of the German media in former years) or silly ideas of backbenchers, we have been given the chance […]

International Engagement Read more

Kabul Conference (4): Don’t Mention the War

Martine van Bijlert •

The Kabul Conference has ended, the foreign ministers have left, the roads have reopened for traffic. Most Afghans seem unimpressed. Several of the ‘big speeches’, and probably quite a few of the ‘smaller’ ones, impressed upon the audience that it was actions, not words that would ultimately count. They are of course right and I […]

Political Landscape Read more

Kabul Conference (3): More plans and programs, but what has happened to the earlier ones?

Thomas Ruttig •

There are mixed feelings among Afghans on the eve of Kabul International Conference. Many people who are involved in convening the Conference, are extremely excited and proud that it’s the FIRST international event being hosted and planned by the Afghan government during the past ten years. However, there are some other critics who continue with […]

International Engagement Read more

Kabul Conference (2): How to spend three quarters of a billion dollars

Kate Clark •

AAN has seen and studied the – not yet public – Afghan government’s plan to reintegrate Taleban who lay down their arms. We also took a look at an earlier draft (see an earlier blog) and have been following the process since well before the London conference. Now comes the moment, at the Kabul Conference, […]

Political Landscape Read more

Kabul Conference (1): Outsmarted and made to pay

Martine van Bijlert •

For weeks I have dismissed the Kabul conference as yet another conference – as something diplomats do, when they don’t know what to do. It was, as usual, preceded by a merry-go-round of pre-meetings and document-drafting-sessions and discrete enquiries (who is coming from your side? are you pledging?), which made it look like simply more […]

International Engagement Read more

New NDS boss – who is he?

Kate Clark •

The appointment of a new head of NDS (National Directorate of Security) has come with a lot less fanfare than the departure of the old one, Amrullah Saleh, who resigned after deep disagreements with the president over policy towards the Taleban. The acting director, Engineer Ibrahim Spinzada, has returned to the shadows and his day […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

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