Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Regional Relations

This priority area covers AAN’s reporting on Afghanistan’s relations within its neighbourhood, with reporting so far focused mainly on Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian republics.

Afghan Students in Pakistan: Lost dreams or a life in the shadows?  

Rama Mirzada •

Afghans studying in Pakistan had hoped they might avoid the collective expulsions that, since 2023, have upended life for over two million Afghans living there. However, as the scope of deportations has widened, students have found themselves unable to get study visas. Some have already been detained by Pakistani police and deported. Others have managed, […]

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Birds of a Feather, in Ideology: What is the relationship between the Islamic Emirate and Hamas?

Thomas Ruttig •

Before the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s continuing war in Gaza, the relationship of the Islamic Emirate towards Hamas could be described as cordial, but not actively supportive. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig (with input from Roxanna Shapour) wanted to look at whether this standpoint has changed since those attacks. By combing […]

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Helmand peace marchers in front of the Russian embassy. Photo: People's Peace Movement/2018

A Troika of Four: Looking back at the March 2021 Afghanistan meeting in Moscow

Thomas Ruttig •

The ‘extended troika’ meeting in Moscow on 18 March did not spark a significant new impulse in the search for peace in Afghanistan. Instead, it followed a well-known pattern. Foreign powers offered platitudes about an ‘Afghan-led, Afghan-owned’ peace process, again, while they insist on setting the timeline themselves and handpick those who are to be […]

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The Gates of Friendship: How Afghans cross the Afghan-Pakistani border

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon •

There are three official crossings on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a boundary also known as the Durand Line. Two of these crossings are well-known: Torkham in the east and Spin Boldak in the south of Afghanistan. The gates that separate the two countries in the south read “the Gates of Friendship” in Pashto: […]

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Fatemiyun fighters’ graves in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in southern Tehran. Three of the ten women interviewed had lost men in the war in Syria. Casualties among the Fatemiyun have been heavy. Photo: Mohsen Hamidi, April 2019

The Two Faces of the Fatemiyun (II): The women behind the fighters

Mohsen Hamidi •

Existing studies on the Fatemiyun have focused on the Afghan men fighting for the Iran-backed government in Syria. The women behind the fighters – wives, mothers and sisters – have remained invisible, despite the fact that many fighters decided to go to Syria with family concerns in mind. Based on interviews with ten women in […]

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Fatemiyun fighters during the Palmyra offensive in Palmyra, Homs province, central Syria, December 2016 (Photo Iranian Tasnim News Agency, 10 December 2016, available under CC BY 4.0)

The Two Faces of the Fatemiyun (I): Revisiting the male fighters

Mohsen Hamidi •

Over the last eight years, thousands of Afghan men and some boys have fought on the side of the Iran-supported Assad government in Syria as members of the Fatemiyun group. Although they are sent to Syria from Iran and supported by the Iranian government, Tehran describes the group as “self-motivated.” This dispatch, which is the […]

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A Tomb in Kabul: The Fate of the Last Amir of Bukhara and his country’s relations with Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig • Vladimir N Plastun •

In addition to the last Amir of Bukhara’s former garden, on which we reported some days ago, there is another landmark in Kabul that reminds us of this unlucky ruler – his tomb at the Shuhada-ye Salehin cemetery. The Amir, Muhammad Alem Khan, died in Kabul in 1944 and remains buried in Afghanistan despite his […]

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Cover of "Directorate S: The CIA and America’s secret wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016" written by: Steve Coll

“The US’s Greatest Strategic Failure”: Steve Coll on the CIA and the ISI

Ann Wilkens •

“Directorate S” is Steve Coll’s second major study of the CIA’s role in recent Afghan wars. While “Ghost Wars” chronicled the years 1979-2001, “Directorate S” – referring to a subdivision of Pakistan’s inter-services intelligence directorate that covers Afghanistan – takes up the story in 2001 and follows it through to 2016. AAN Advisory Board member […]

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Climbing on China’s Priority List: Views on Afghanistan from Beijing

Thomas Ruttig •

Since the never completed withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan, China has become more involved in one of its most conflictive neighbour’s affairs. It has offered to connect the country with its multi-billion dollar project, the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes the so-called Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig has found – after […]

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Bozoi Gumbaz in Badakshan where the old Soviet base was built nearby to stop infiltration of mujahedin coming in from China. Photo: Author (2017).

Tilting at Windmills: Dubious US claims of targeting Chinese Uyghur militants in Badakhshan

Franz J Marty • Ted Callahan •

In early February 2018, US forces conducted airstrikes in Afghanistan’s north-eastern province of Badakhshan, supposedly targeting ‘support structures’ of the ‘East Turkistan Islamic Movement’ (ETIM), allegedly a group of Uyghur extremists hailing from China’s far west said to be focused on attacking the Chinese state. (1) United States Forces – Afghanistan claimed the strikes targeted […]

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Satellite image of Bahramcha crossing point located in Helmand’s remote Dishu district. Photo: Google Maps

Jihadi Commuters: How the Taleban cross the Durand Line

Borhan Osman • Fazl Rahman Muzhary •

The Taleban use Pakistan as a sanctuary: most of the movement’s leaders are settled there and it is the movement’s preferred place for training, meeting and as a rear base. It is also the prime destination for ‘rest and recuperation’ (R&R) and the rehabilitation of wounded fighters. But how do the Taleban move between the […]

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Tall-hatted Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev opened a ‘Chechen embassy’ in Kabul in 2000. Photo: Natalia Medvedeva (2000)

Chechens in Afghanistan 3 (Flash from the Past): Diplomats, yes, but fighters?

Kate Clark •

Following the authoritative account of Chechens – or rather lack of Chechens – in Afghanistan by Christian Bleuer, and how they have frequently been reported on, but rarely encountered, AAN’s Kate Clark here describes her own experiences with Chechens in 2000. In January of that year, she reported on the opening of a Chechen embassy […]

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