Publications

Is maternal mortality on the rise in Afghanistan? No official data, but much cause for concern

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate was already among the ten highest in the world, but it has come under further pressure. The United States’ decision to entirely cut aid to Afghanistan earlier this year has led to the closure of over 400 health facilities and that is likely to have particularly affected women during the most […]

28 Sep 2025

A year of Propagating Virtue and Preventing Vice: Enforcers and ‘enforced’ speak about the Emirate’s morality law

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

It is a year since the Islamic Emirate issued a new law to propagate virtue and prevent vice. The goal, of changing Afghans’ dress and behaviour, has been an abiding mission of the Taliban’s since they first emerged as a movement in the 1990s. The law laid out not only the actions that the Emirate […]

21 Aug 2025

Breaking the Cycle of Centuries-old Violence: A decline in blood feuds in Khost province?

Sharif Akram •

Blood feuds or revenge killings are closely connected to honour and shame, as seen through tribal customs and centuries-old traditions in Afghan society. For many decades, these feuds perpetuated cycles of violence, claimed countless lives and undermined the formal justice system. However, in recent decades, they seem to be in decline, as Afghan society experiences shifts […]

3 Aug 2025

Living a Mullah’s Life (2): The evolution of Islamic knowledge among village clerics

Sharif Akram •

Over the past four decades much has been written about Afghan mullahs and madrasas. Most commentary has focused on the role they have played in disseminating militancy and jihadism in Afghanistan. This report takes a very different look. It is the second instalment of a two-part mini-series assessing the changing role of rural mullahs, focusing […]

20 Jul 2025

Months, Years and Thousands of Afghanis Later… Stories of Afghans battling bureaucracy

Rohullah Sorush •

Trying to get important documents from the state can be a maddening and expensive ordeal in Afghanistan. Many complain about the time-consuming and frustrating process of applying for a tazkira (ID card), passport, driving license, or a nikahkhat (marriage certificate). From government offices to courts to legal affairs departments, Afghans can get trapped in paperwork and corruption. If […]

7 Jul 2025

The Daily Hustle: Muhammad’s last journey – a story of survival, debt and loss

Nur Khan Himmat • Roxanna Shapour •

The Islamic Emirate’s ban on poppy cultivation has reshaped life in many areas across Afghanistan, especially in Helmand province, where poppy was fundamental to the economy and to many farmers’ livelihoods. This is the story of one such farmer, Muhammad, who, having lost his main source of income following the poppy ban and finding that […]

5 Oct 2025

The Daily Hustle: How one mother cares for her family through sickness, hunger and debt

Rama Mirzada • Roxanna Shapour •

In Afghanistan, years of conflict, economic collapse, and rising poverty have left hundreds of thousands of families struggling to survive. For those already on the brink, a single illness can be life-altering, pushing the household into crisis and making even the most basic necessities, such as bread, cooking oil, or school uniforms, unaffordable. In this […]

7 Sep 2025

The Daily Hustle: Building a business in Kabul one stitch at a time

Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour •

In Kabul’s Timur Shahi area, tailoring is serious business. Rows of shopfronts compete for customers. One marvels at how so many tailors, offering basically the same service, stay in business in such close proximity. But they do. Each tailor has his own loyal customers who have been with him for years, even generations. In this instalment […]

10 Aug 2025

The Daily Hustle: Afghans flee the Iran-Israel war

Nur Khan Himmat • Roxanna Shapour •

As the conflict between Israel and Iran escalated, many Afghans who had been living in Iran opted to return to Afghanistan, fearing for their safety. The Iranian government’s current drive to deport Afghans had already accelerated the pace of ‘returns’. However, for Afghans who had lived through years of conflict in their own country, the […]

30 Jun 2025

The Daily Hustle: How to get a national ID card in Afghanistan if you’re a Kuchi

Nur Khan Himmat • Roxanna Shapour •

Despite claims that obtaining a national identity card (tazkira) has become easier, many Afghans still encounter significant hurdles when they try to get one. The difficulties are particularly pronounced for returnees – those coming back after years in Pakistan or who were born there without ever having lived in Afghanistan – as well as for members of […]

28 May 2025

The Daily Hustle: Getting married, with 49 other couples

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

For many young Afghans, the dream of getting married and starting a family is stymied by a myriad obstacles on the road to their hoped-for nuptials. One of the main barriers is the high cost of weddings and the steep bride price that many fathers ask for in exchange for their daughter’s hand in marriage. […]

18 May 2025

Afghanistan’s Urban Water Dilemma: Why are Afghan cities running out of water?

Mhd Assem Mayar •

Water scarcity, once thought to be a problem only for Afghanistan’s driest provinces like Farah and Nimruz, is now gripping Afghan cities. Predictions that Kabul’s groundwater will be exhausted by 2030 have already made international headlines, but Kabul is not alone. In cities across the country, taps are running dry, wells are having to be […]

17 Sep 2025

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 […]

30 Aug 2025

Another Drought Year for Afghanistan… But prospects are not as bad as they could be

Afghanistan is bracing itself for its fourth drought in five years. For many farmers and herders, the drought is catastrophic: spring rains failed and with them, rainfed wheat and pasture in the rangeland. Even so, agroclimate experts are forecasting a surprisingly positive picture for Afghanistan’s staple crop, wheat. Winter wheat has done well this year, […]

27 Jul 2025

Manoeuvring Through the Cracks: The Afghan human rights movement under the Islamic Emirate

Rachel Reid •

The end of the Islamic Republic was a catastrophe for Afghanistan’s human rights movement, with nearly all human rights defenders thrown into exile, fearing for their lives. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) combines an austere interpretation of Islam with ultra-conservative social mores, resulting in a highly authoritarian state with strict laws and practices. While […]

15 Jun 2025

A Force for Good, or Source of Coercion? An Islamic scholar reflects on the Emirate’s morality law

John Butt •

The Islamic Emirate’s law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice lays out the behaviour and actions which it deems obligatory or forbidden for Afghan men and women. It also lays out the powers of the enforcers, who have been given extensive authority to impose penalties on those they deem wrongdoers. Today, we […]

21 Apr 2025

Rural Women’s Access to Health in Afghanistan: “Most of the time, we just don’t go”

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Since the return of the Islamic Emirate, Afghanistan’s already fragile healthcare system has deteriorated, with stark inequalities for women and rural populations. The system faces a severe lack of funding, inadequate infrastructure and a critical shortage of qualified professionals, which has been exacerbated by prohibitions targeting women since 2021. These failings are felt most acutely […]

27 Mar 2025

Deepening Discrimination: A dossier of reports about Afghan women

AAN Team •

We last published a dossier of reports about women in July 2021, just before that momentous event for Afghanistan, the collapse of the Islamic Republic and re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate. Those reports testified to how Afghan women’s efforts to overcome discrimination are nothing new. However, their struggles have only grown in magnitude as the […]

8 Mar 2025

Still Under Sanctions, Still Unrecognised: A dossier of reports on Afghanistan, international relations and aid ahead of Doha III

AAN Team •

The United Nations is due to host a third meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, on 30 June-1 July 2024, to discuss Afghanistan. It is aimed, according to a UN spokesperson, at increasing “international engagement with Afghanistan in a more coherent, coordinated and structured manner.” The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has said […]

9 Jun 2024

Kafka in Cuba: A dossier of reports looking at the Afghan experience in Guantanamo

AAN has followed the travails of the Afghans held by the United States at its prison camp at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba for over a decade, prompted first by the cases of the five Taleban who were released in exchange for US serviceman Bowe Bergdahl in 2014, and later focussing on the […]

8 Oct 2023

The Afghan Economy Since the Taleban Took Power: A dossier of reports on economic calamity, state finances and consequences for households

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

When the Taleban captured power on 15 August 2021, the Afghan economy suffered sudden and catastrophic damage from all sides. Foreign aid fell away, United Nations and United States sanctions applied suddenly not to an armed movement but to the country’s government, Afghanistan’s foreign reserves were frozen, the banking sector paralysed, and the web of […]

14 May 2023

Not at COP27, but Already in Crisis: A dossier on Afghanistan and the climate emergency

Thomas Ruttig •

Afghanistan is projected to be the sixth most badly affected country by climate change but is also among the lightest emitters of greenhouse gasses. Yet, it is not represented at the COP27 conference, a meeting of the member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change now underway in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Afghanistan signed […]

9 Nov 2022

Creating the ‘Idea’ of a Country: The ‘Afghanistan in World Literature’ dossier

Fabrizio Foschini •

How do foreign literary works shape attitudes towards Afghanistan and Afghans? That is the subject of this dossier which brings together AAN reports from its ‘Afghanistan in World Literature’ series. Over the years, we have written many pieces on this subject, spurred not only by a passion for everything related to Afghanistan, but also by […]

15 Sep 2022

Head of customs for the Hairatan border crossing in Balkh province, Abdul Sattar Rashid (second left), with other Taleban on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. The Taleban moved swiftly to organise and regularise the collection of customs and taxes as they took power in 2021. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 27 October 2021

New AAN Special Report: “Taxing the Afghan Nation: What the Taleban’s pursuit of domestic revenues means for citizens, the economy and the state”

As insurgents, the Taleban taxed farmers, businesses and NGOs in areas under their control, using the money to fund their war effort. On taking power in August 2021, they swiftly moved to collect taxes in the whole of the country. That serious-minded pursuit of domestic revenue collection is both a practice carried over from the […]

28 Sep 2022

New special report: ‘Between Hope and Fear. Rural Afghan women talk about peace and war’

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As the United States pushes ahead with the rapid and unconditional withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, an unrelenting Taleban offensive has driven the Afghan government out of scores of districts across the country. Many Afghans are seeing their fears about the fallout from the ill-considered US-driven peace process come true. Against this backdrop, AAN’s […]

6 Jul 2021

New Special Report from AAN: “Kafka in Cuba, a Follow-Up Report: Afghans Still in Detention Limbo as Biden Decides What to do with Guantanamo”

As newly-elected United States President Joe Biden considers what to do with the almost two-decades-old ‘war on terror’ detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, we publish a special report on the last Afghans held there. Two Nangraharis, Asadullah Harun Gul and Mohammad Rahim, have both been detained since 2007. We also trace the fates […]

19 Apr 2021

New special report on Afghanistan’s newest local defence force: Were “all the mistakes of the ALP” turned into ANA-TF safeguards?

Today, AAN publishes a special report looking at Afghanistan’s newest local defence force, the Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANA-TF). Set up by presidential decree in February 2018 and funded and supported by NATO’s United States-led Resolute Support mission, it was intended to be a lightly-armed, low-cost, local arm of the ANA which could hold […]

20 Aug 2020

New special report: ‘Ghosts of the Past: Lessons from Local Force Mobilisation in Afghanistan and Prospects for the Future’

A major new special report, ‘Ghosts of the Past: Lessons from Local Force Mobilisation in Afghanistan and Prospects for the Future’ looks at what is likely to make a local defence force – such as the Afghan Local Police (ALP) or Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANA-TF) successful. This research sought to understand what makes some […]

1 Jul 2020

The Cost of Support to Afghanistan: New special report considers the reasons for inequality, poverty and a failing democracy

In a new AAN special report, Kate Clark considers the apparent paradox that despite almost two decades of international support to Afghanistan, poverty for most Afghans has deepened. She also explores the gap between the promise of the 2002 Bonn Agreement and 2004 constitution, a multi-ethnic, fully representative government, a democracy with strong checks and […]

29 May 2020

The Conversation: Authors discuss a selection of AAN’s best reports

Every month AANCast dives into some of our longer reports, to give you a flavour of our more in-depth reporting, in discussion with a range of authors. This month, we’re looking at the International Criminal Court issuing of arrest warrants for two of the leaders of Islamic Emirate for the international crime of gender persecution, […]

6 Oct 2025

The Daily Hustle: How to get a national ID card in Afghanistan if you’re a Kuchi

The Daily Hustle is our series of first-person accounts by one Afghan about one aspect of their daily life. On our website, you can find stories such as the girl who was so appalled by madrasa education, she persuaded her family to set one up for girls, the labourer and his wife taking in a […]

4 Oct 2025

Losing His Immunity: Former Afghan MP Haji Zaher extradited to US on drug charges

In this episode we look at the dramatic fall of Haji Abdul Zaher Qadir, once a powerful Afghan commander and politician, now facing drug trafficking charges in the United States, after being arrested at a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, in April 2025. Haji Zaher, as he’s best known, was a prominent police commander and parliamentarian […]

3 Oct 2025

The Daily Hustle: Afghans flee the Iran-Israel war

As the conflict between Israel and Iran escalated, many Afghans who had been living in Iran opted to return to Afghanistan, fearing for their safety. The Iranian government’s current drive to deport Afghans had already accelerated the pace of ‘returns’. However, for Afghans who had lived through years of conflict in their own country, the […]

2 Oct 2025

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”.

17 Jan 2024

La Croazia e i migranti alle frontiere d’Europa

Fabrizio Foschini •

Clionet, December 2023 This article is a revised version of an earlier AAN report by Fabrizio on Afghan refugees on the Balkan route, this time focusing solely on Croatia and published in the Italian online journal of contemporary history, Clionet.

31 Dec 2023