Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Fabrizio Foschini

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

Migration Read more

Holding the Line in Afghanistan: Women’s health in crisis and one NGO’s response 

Kate Clark • Fabrizio Foschini •

AAN has considered women’s health in Afghanistan from several angles in recent years, with bleak conclusions. We found provision for women living in rural areas under particular threat, with clinics closing, shortages of female health professionals and economic pressure making it difficult for families to afford transport to a clinic. In 2024, the Islamic Emirate […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

When Your Back’s Against the Wall: The Shughnan Rebellion of 1925 in the memory of local people

Fabrizio Foschini •

An Afghan proverb, tang amad, ba jang amad sums up the circumstances which led to rebellion in a northeasterly corner of Afghanistan, the poor and isolated Shughnan district of Badakhshan province, a century ago: When your back is against the wall, you will fight back – no matter how weak your side and how unlikely your chances […]

Context and Culture Read more

Breaking Point? The mounting conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan 

Fabrizio Foschini • Rachel Reid • Roxanna Shapour •

Over the past six months, the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has extended from low-level border skirmishes to talk of “open war.” Pakistan conducted its first-ever air strikes in Kabul in October 2025, targeting Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan (TTP) and, more recently, on 16 March 2026, bombed the city, killing more than 140 civilians. Islamabad, for the […]

War and Peace Read more

What Afghans May Read: Banned books under the Islamic Emirate

Fabrizio Foschini •

In 2025, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan intensified its efforts to circumscribe the information available to Afghan citizens, following its October 2024 order to libraries and bookstores to remove books that were now prohibited. In July 2025, a special committee was set up to scrutinise university curricula. It subsequently abolished whole courses and removed hundreds […]

Political Landscape Read more

The Mining Sector in Afghanistan: A picture in black and gold

Fabrizio Foschini •

The mining sector has become one of the foremost drivers of Afghanistan’s beleaguered national economy in recent years. It offers the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) revenue from taxes, royalties and fees, but also the potential to boost the country’s scant diplomatic relations. However, while waiting for foreign actors to tap the fabled underground riches […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

The Fourth Year of the Opium Ban: An update from two of Afghanistan’s major poppy-growing areas

Fabrizio Foschini • Jelena Bjelica •

The Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation has entered its fourth year and apart from the first harvest of opium poppies in spring 2022, when farmers were allowed to harvest their standing crop, the authorities have enforced it, with one notable exception – Badakhshan. Farmers there have been better able to avoid the ban, both […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Opium Cultivation in Badakhshan: The new national leader, according to UNODC

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

Although the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) ban on opium cultivation continues largely to hold, the area under poppy did increase in 2024, by almost a fifth, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) annual survey. Even with that increase, however, this year’s cultivation was negligible compared to pre-ban levels. What is […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Ruling Uncharted Territory: Islamic Emirate governance in northeastern Afghanistan

Fabrizio Foschini •

The relationship between central government and political actors at the periphery has long been studied in Afghanistan in order to understand representation, legitimacy, patronage and conflict. In the years of the insurgency and since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), the Taleban movement has remained a cohesive force in Afghanistan’s highly fragmented […]

Political Landscape Read more

Education in Hibernation: The end of a virtuous cycle of literacy and empowerment for women in Shughnan?

Fabrizio Foschini •

The ban on girls’ secondary education, together with other policies by the Islamic Emirate, have severely affected the lives of female teachers across Afghanistan. This is seldom truer than it is in Shughnan, a mountainous district in Badakhshan province where men and women have long specialised in teaching, working in their own district and beyond. […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

The Pastures of Heaven: An update of Kuchi-Hazara disputes as spring approaches  

Fabrizio Foschini • Rama Mirzada •

The central highlands of the Hazarajat are gearing up for a third year of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) managing one of the most polarising land conflicts in the country, that between Hazara villagers and Pashtun nomads, the Kuchis. The re-establishment of the IEA in 2021 allowed the Kuchis to return, after 40 years, […]

Political Landscape Read more

Repères famine: Afghanistan – le défi de la malnutrition infantile

Fabrizio Foschini • Rohullah Sorush •

Moyen Orient No. 61, Jan-March 2024 This article is the French version of Fabrizio Foschini et Rohullah Sorush’s AAN July 2023 report “No Food For Hope: Afghanistan’s Child Malnutrition Dilemma in 2023.” It appears here in a special issue under the title “Crise alimentaire et géopolitique de la faim”.

External publications Read more

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