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.

MSF Investigation: US hospital strike looking more like a war crime

Kate Clark •

A preliminary investigation by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) into the United States airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz on 3 October, which killed at least 30 people, has raised some serious questions. Fresh evidence suggests statements made by US officials in the first few days after the attack were false. It also makes clear how […]

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A 36-Year Wait for Justice? Dutch arrest suspected Afghan war criminal

Kate Clark •

The Dutch police have arrested an Afghan Dutchman on suspicion of war crimes. Sadeq Alamyar has been accused of involvement in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghan war: the killing of hundreds of men and boys in the village of Kerala in Kunar province by an elite unit, on the night of 19-20 […]

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Homeless and Unwanted: How Kabul’s drug users are driven from place to place

Jelena Bjelica • Qayoom Suroush •

The 2015 summer campaign to push drug users out from under the bridge in Pol-e Sokhta and close the ‘addict town’ there has turned into a public spectacle with groups of drug addicts being herded around by the police. Complaints by the surrounding community had forced the police to act, resulting in the partial dispersal of […]

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Emomali Rahmon, President of Tajikistan. Credit: Kate Dixon (Flickr)

Attack on the Opposition in Tajikistan: Afghan concerns and comparisons

Christian Bleuer •

Despite its 1300 kilometre-long border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan is rarely worried by the internal political strife and occasional violence to its north. The situation is, however, worsening. The Dushanbe government’s relentless attack on its domestic political (non-military) opposition, including the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), threatens to undo the relative peace and prosperity of […]

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The 2015 insurgency in the North (4): Surrounding the cities in Baghlan

Gran Hewad •

During the recent two week Taleban occupation of Kunduz city, the strong insurgent presence in the province immediately to the south, Baghlan, was of huge importance to the insurgents. By blocking the key north-south road which goes through the heart of the province, they prevented ANA reinforcements from the capital from reaching Kunduz for several days. The movement […]

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Quarter of a Century of War in Pictures: Exhibition at ACKU

Kate Clark •

An exhibition of war photographs taken in Afghanistan over the last quarter of a century is currently showing at the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University and will thereafter be available in its archive. American photographer Robert Nickelsberg has been visiting the country since 1988, catching moments on film that are variously historic, unsettling and tender. […]

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Kuduz after the fighting on September 28, 2015. Photo Credit: @ehsan_af (Twitter)

The 2015 Insurgency in the North (3): The fall and recapture of Kunduz

Obaid Ali •

It took 15 days of fierce fighting for Afghan government forces and their US allies to push the Taleban back out of Kunduz city. Clashes continue in the surrounding districts. The Taleban onslaught on 28 September should not have come as a surprise, given how much territory in the province the group was already controlling. […]

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There are no known pictures of Mohammed Kamin, now cleared for release from Guantanamo. Even the US military’s intelligence Assessment of him has only a blacked out face.

Kafka in Cuba 3: Afghan who wore the wrong type of watch to be released from Guantanamo

Kate Clark •

One of the eight Afghans still detained at Guantanamo Bay, Mohammad Kamin, has been cleared for release after a new review board assessed it was no longer necessary to detain him. Kamin, now in his late 30s and from Khost, has been incarcerated for 12 years, a third of his life. The United States believed […]

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Svetlana Alexievich, during the 2015 Ryszard Kapuściński prize ceremony, Warsaw. Photo: Charta97.org.

Literature Nobel Prize for Svetlana Alexievich, author of 1990 Afghanistan book Zinky Boys

Thomas Ruttig •

Svetlana Alexievich has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Among her many breath-taking and deeply unsettling books is one about Afghanistan. Published in 1990, Zinky Boys is based on interviews with former Soviet soldiers and their relatives in her Belorussian home country in the second half of the 1980s, then still a Soviet republic. […]

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Emergency surgery after the bombing in one of the remaining parts of MSF's hospital in Kunduz on the 3rd October 2015. Photo: MSF

Airstrike on a Hospital in Kunduz: Claims of a war crime

Kate Clark •

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is now demanding an International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission look into the United States air strike which hit its hospital in Kunduz in the early hours of Saturday morning (3 October 2015). 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, including three children, were killed in the strike which came four days into fierce […]

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The Fall of Kunduz: What does it tell us about the strength of the post-Omar Taleban?

Borhan Osman •

The capture of Kunduz by the Taleban has surely written off any idea of the movement having been seriously undermined or fractured by the death of Mullah Omar and the leadership dispute that followed. His successor, Akhtar Mansur may still face some resistance from dissidents within the movement, but on the battlefield, the Taleban under […]

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Afghan Women’s Football: The players’ passion for the game

Kate Clark •

This year’s Afghan women’s football tournament has kicked off with a match pitting Kabul against Bamyan, shown live on national television. Kabul proved too strong for Bamyan and won 10:0. Yet, the Bamyan players were unbowed: Kabul has many of the Afghan national team players on its side and female soccer players in Bamyan can […]

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