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.

A UN Postscript to the Provincial Council Elections

Thomas Ruttig •

The following is everything the UN Secretary General and his Kabul rep Kai Eide have to say about the highly flawed provincial council elections. ‘With respect to the provincial council elections, as at 12 December, the Electoral Complaints Commission had formally delivered all 34 provincial council decisions to the Independent Electoral Commission, thus allowing the […]

International Engagement Read more

Pashto Mashto – what’s that? Read it!

Thomas Ruttig •

The following blog starts our new non- but not a-political blog category called Pashto Mashto. It will not deal with daily political affairs but with issues related to Afghan languages and, more generally, culture(s). Cultural issues in the broader sense are often only covered at the margins by media (including bloggers) but are, at the […]

Context and Culture Read more

Read PASHTO MASHTO!

Thomas Ruttig •

Blog-e newin-e Shabaka-ye Tahlilgaran-e Afghanistan be-khwaned! De AAN neway blog wu-lwalley! Read AAN’s new cultural-linguistic Pashto Mashto under blog here, find out what that means and learn more about Afghanistan’s ‘human terrain’. The new category of blogs deals with non-political issues, like language, culture etc. But not only with Pashto… Contributions and comments are most welcome. Xhe raghlast […]

Context and Culture Read more

Rejection of Ministers: The Legal Basis

Antonella Deledda •

The rejection of 17 ministerial appointees by the Afghan lower house, beyond its political implications also represent another episode of the conflict between executive and legislative branches of government, which have increasingly exacerbated over the last six years, writes our member ANTONELLA DELEDDA*. On 2 January, the lower house (Wolesi Jirga) of the Afghan parliament […]

Political Landscape Read more

Rays of Hope in Parliament

Minna Jarvenpaa •

We continue our reporting and discussion about the next Afghan cabinet – with this blog by our founding member MINNA JARVENPAA. There has been paralysis in the Afghan government for the last six months. No meaningful business was transacted while the elections took their excruciatingly prolonged course, or in the following months of deal-making over […]

Political Landscape Read more

An Ugly Kind of Security

Thomas Ruttig •

The new security regulations announced in the US already draw criticism. Rightly so because they smell like racial and political profiling – plus a pinch of the bad old ‘axis of evil’ thinking. All citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen plus ‘nations considered “state sponsors of terrorism”’ […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Response to: ‘Time to Work with Warlords? What?’

Gerard Russel •

The following response to my blog ‘Time to Work with Warlords? What?’ (30 Dec. 2009) came from the author of the original op-ed, GERARD RUSSELL, who criticizes that I did not pay sufficient attention ‘to what I actually said in my article’. Here his remarks: For one thing, I propose the same thing as you: […]

War and Peace Read more

What the Lakki Marwat Carnage Shows

Thomas Ruttig •

With horror and disgust I was watching over the last days how the number of victims of a car-bomb detonated at a volleyball match in Shah Hassankhel village (Lakki Marwat area), close to South Waziristan, in Pakistan was steadily rising: 22, 32, 60, 75, 89, up to 93 Saturday afternoon. (No further reports from Sunday […]

War and Peace Read more

The Cabinet Vote: Confusion as Political Principle

Thomas Ruttig •

A commentary — No, the rejection of two thirds of his cabinet proposals by the Wolesi Jirga is no ‘slap in the face of Hamed Karzai’, as some media put it. On the contrary, it is a success for him. The Afghan President – often ridiculed as mayor of Kabul – has, again, shown it […]

Political Landscape Read more

Parliament votes off most of Karzai’s Cabinet

Martine van Bijlert •

After over two weeks of listening to presentations by the candidate ministers and being subjected to lobbying and negotiations, the Lower House of Parliament finally voted. And only seven out of twenty-four ministers were passed. It can be no coincidence that six of them were sitting ministers about which the internationals had made it quite […]

Political Landscape Read more

Aid Workers and the Military

Thomas Ruttig •

Let’s start 2010 with something positive: German chancellor Angela Merkel commended the work of civilian aid workers in Afghanistan in her New Year address, before mentioning policemen and soldiers. That was an interesting and long overdue accent in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s New Year TV address: She commended the ‘many civilian helpers, the policemen and our […]

International Engagement Read more

Afghanistan’s Most Under-Reported Stories in 2009

Joanna Nathan •

Read a compilation of stories that did not really make it into a lot of international headlines in the year 2009 that’s just ending – but surely would have deserved it – by our member JOANNA NATHAN*. AAN welcome contributions adding to this shortlist. Afghanistan was the forgotten war no more in 2009 with the […]

Political Landscape Read more

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