Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Kate Clark

A Place to Call Home: What is driving up house prices in Kabul and pushing the poorest residents into homelessness? 

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Kate Clark •

House prices and rents in the Afghan capital are on the rise again, according to estate agents and tenants. There was a sharp decline in both prices and rents when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) took power in August 2021. Now, people who need to move are discovering just how difficult it is to […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more
David Page visiting Khuram wa Sabarbagh, Samangan province, in 2014, where Afghanaid was rebuilding homes damaged by flash flooding. Photo: with kind permission from Afghanaid

Remembering David Page: Indefatigable champion of the media and dedicated advocate for Afghanistan

Kate Clark •

David Page was the first editor of the BBC Pashto service when it was set up in 1981, and also served for almost 30 years on the Board of Trustees for Afghanaid, for ten years as the NGO’s chair. He has died after a brief illness at the age of 80. The spark that lit […]

Context and Culture Read more

America Decides: But will who wins the US election make any difference to Afghanistan?

Kate Clark •

Afghanistan has barely featured in next week’s United States presidential elections except in the most minor way, as a political football kicked about by the two candidates seeking to blame the other for the debacle of the 2021 withdrawal and the Taleban’s capture of power. Even so, will who wins the 5 November election – […]

International Engagement Read more

Will There Ever be Accountability for War Crimes in Afghanistan? Two reports take stock of past failures and make some proposals 

Kate Clark •

Accountability for war crimes and human rights violations in Afghanistan has been on the agenda this week at the 57th annual session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. For almost half a century, various Afghan factions, governments and foreign forces have perpetrated abuses – indiscriminate bombing, torture and rape, arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, massacres […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

How Fares the Afghan Private Sector? Trying to run a business in a “stagnant” economy

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

There is a consensus that the private sector is crucial to getting any real growth back into the Afghan economy – described by the World Bank as “persistently stagnant.” Long-term growth, it said, was contingent on a “more resilient, private-sector led economy that capitalizes on the nation’s inherent strengths.” Boosting the private sector is also high […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

1980s Pul-e Charkhi Commander Walks Free: War crimes conviction overturned by Dutch Court of Appeal 

Kate Clark •

A senior figure overseeing the notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison in the 1980s who was convicted of war crimes in the Netherlands, where he had been given asylum, has seen his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. His lawyers successfully argued that Abdul Razaq Aref’s crimes – arbitrary deprivation of liberty, cruel and inhuman treatment, […]

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War Crimes in the First Two Decades of the Afghan Conflict: Republishing the UN Mapping Report 

Kate Clark •

In 2004, a major report mapping the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Afghanistan between 1978 and 2001 was published by the United Nations before being swiftly taken down under political pressure, allegedly from then president Hamed Karzai, some of his ministers and foreign backers and from within the UN. What became known as […]

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Finally, Rain and Snow in Afghanistan: Will it be enough to avert another year of drought?

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

The last few weeks have finally seen rain and snowfall in Afghanistan, raising hopes for farmers and herders that this year could be better than the last three drought years. Afghans typically categorise a drought year as one where the low amount of precipitation causes problems for agriculture – a poor harvest or crop failure […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more
Bostan Karim (L) and Abdul Zahir (C), two former prisoners held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, arrive at Kabul airport in Kabul airport. Photo: AFP, 12 February 2024

Home at Last: After more than 20 years, two former inmates of Guantanamo reach Afghanistan

Kate Clark •

Two more Afghan former inmates of the United States’ Guantanamo detention camp have finally returned home after more than two decades incarcerated or in exile. Abdul Zahir from Logar was detained by US forces and rendered to Guantanamo in July 2002, while Bostan Karim from Paktia was arrested by Pakistan a month later and handed […]

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What We Wrote, What You Read in 2023: Daily struggles, edicts and orders, falcons flying high

Kate Clark •

2023 was a busy year for AAN, with just over 50 publications. They ranged from in-depth investigations into the economy, public finance and the aid industry to a poetic journey into the world of falconry. We introduced a new form of report – short, first-person accounts by Afghans of what they are doing to survive […]

Context and Culture Read more

Dreams Deferred (Again): The last remaining Afghan in Guantanamo loses his latest bid for freedom

Kate Clark •

The last Afghan still held in Guantanamo, Muhammad Rahim from Nangrahar province, has failed in his latest attempt to persuade the United States authorities to release him. The US continues to assert that he was a translator, courier and facilitator for al-Qaeda leaders and even though it is more than two years since US forces […]

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A poppy farmer and labourer by the farmer's crop in Nad Ali district, Helmand Province in spring 2015. Photo: Andrew Quilty, 2015.

Prosperity or Penury: The political and economic fallout of the opium ban in Afghanistan

Kate Clark • Jelena Bjelica •

Two new reports, one from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and another by David Mansfield and Alcis, show that Afghan farmers have largely complied with the Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation. They chart a swingeing cut in cultivation in 2023 – just 10,000 to 30,000 hectares of land sown with opium […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

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