Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Kate Clark

Right Livelihood Award for Sima Samar

Kate Clark •

Dr Sima Samar, chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has won this year’s Right Livelihood Award – along with a British anti-arms campaigning group, a Turkish environmental campaigner and a veteran American thinker and activist for non-violent resistance. The jury said they awarded Samar what is often called the alternative Nobel peace […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Bagram and Insider Attacks: ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ no longer?

Kate Clark •

It has been a rough week for US-led international forces, with threats, tensions and setbacks multiplying. The Taleban’s spectacular attack on Camp Bastion on 15 September, which left two soldiers – including a lieutenant colonel – dead, six fighter planes destroyed and two others damaged and ISAF’s narrative of a weakening insurgency looking fragile, was […]

International Engagement Read more

Filling the Power Ministries (2): (No) News Flash

Kate Clark •

In an attempt to keep informing our readers about the key issue of the expected cabinet reshuffle, we had to invent a new category today: the No News Flash. The reason: the parliament’s lower house postponed the decision to Saturday, for the time being, and busied itself with statistics instead. AAN Researcher Obaid Ali, Senior […]

Political Landscape Read more

Filling the Power Ministries: Biographies of the four candidates

Kate Clark •

Parliament was about to start scrutinising President Karzai’s nominations for three of the most powerful positions in government, plus one less significant ministry yesterday (Tuesday). But the nominees did not make into the Wolesi Jirga because the MPs demanded that they must be accompanied by either the President or one of his deputies in person.(1) […]

Political Landscape Read more

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (3): Bagram and the Struggle for Sovereignty

Kate Clark •

Bagram Detention Centre has been officially transferred to Afghan control today, with the fundamental question of sovereignty – who has the right to arrest and detain Afghans on Afghan soil – still not resolved. The US insists it still has the right; the government says this is illegal. On Saturday (8 September 2012), President Karzai, […]

Political Landscape Read more

The Takhar attack and Targeted Killings: the Legal Challenge

Kate Clark •

An Afghan bank worker from rural Takhar, Habib Rahman, is taking the British government to court over Britain’s participation in drawing up and executing the US military’s ‘kill list’ which singles out alleged insurgents for targeted killing. Rahman lost his father-in-law, Zabet Amanullah, and several other close relatives in September 2010 when an air strike […]

International Engagement Read more

Correcting Details: More on the NYT Reporting the Human Rights Mapping

Kate Clark •

The New York Times piece ‘Top Afghans Tied to ’90s Carnage, Researchers Say’ ‘revealed’ what everyone knows and rarely says, that many of today’s senior Afghan politicians have murky pasts. Talking about the war crimes of the last thirty years has proved difficult for Afghans and the international powers alike. The decision, in 2005, to […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Flash from the Past: Afghans’ Shattered 2000 Olympic Dreams (amended)

Kate Clark •

The 2012 Olympic Games start today in London with half a dozen Afghans representing their country in taekwondo, boxing, judo and athletics (1) and at least two Para-Olympians competing in weight-lifting and athletics (2). AAN’s senior analyst, Kate Clark, was in Kabul during the 2000 Olympics, when potential Afghan contenders had to stay at home […]

Context and Culture Read more

Another Wedding Party Massacre: The death of Ahmad Khan (amended)

Kate Clark •

Dozens of people have been killed and injured in a suicide attack on a wedding party in Samangan province. Among those killed was the father of the bride, the MP and former commander, Ahmad Khan Samangani, at least one of his sons and at least four other senior security and political officials. As this blog […]

War and Peace Read more

Flash from the Past: the 2002 Tokyo conference – the world’s most difficult story

Kate Clark •

Today’s conference on aid in Tokyo (8 July 2012) has come ten years after international donors first pledged money to post-Taleban Afghanistan. In January 2002, they promised $3 billion (over varying numbers of years, depending on the donor) which was then an enormous sum, although it turned out to be a small drop compared to […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Plants of Afghanistan 2: the Koh-e Baba Foraging Top Ten (amended)

Kate Clark •

Wild rhubarb (chukri or rawash) is surely one of the delights of the Afghan spring. Like many forage plants, rhubarb is both a delicacy in the cities, and an important food for those living in rural areas. As the winter snow melts, the rhubarb rhizome produces stems which can be plucked and eaten raw while […]

Context and Culture Read more

Plants of Afghanistan 1: Centre of Global Biodiversity

Kate Clark •

Among the hundreds of containers bound for Afghanistan which were impounded for over a year at Karachi docks because of a trade dispute were copies of a ground-breaking book on Afghanistan’s plants. S W Breckle and M D Rafiqpoor’s Field Guide Afghanistan: Flora and Vegetation, (1) is unique, the result of decades of work by […]

Context and Culture Read more

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