Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: al-Qaeda

al-Qaeda

“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”: First steps in Afghan peace negotiations

Thomas Ruttig •

With the US-Taleban negotiations in Doha actually addressing how to end the Afghan war, and with first progress being made in the form of an agreed draft framework, Afghanistan seems to be slowly inching beyond the impasse of only ‘talks about talks.’ With this, a peace process has possibly left the starting blocks, but only […]

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Mali, Afghanistan – Conflicts Worlds Apart? Parallels and Lessons to be Learnt

Thomas Ruttig •

When jihadist groups took over the northern half of Mali last year and French troops intervened in January this year, a discussion ensued in the media and among analysts about whether Mali was, or would become, a ‘second’ or ‘African’ Afghanistan. Most found a comparison ludicrous. With Mali’s presidential election coming up on today, 28 […]

International Engagement Read more

Winding Down or in for the Long Haul? The emergence of a new US counter-terrorism strategy

Kate Clark •

The great behemoth of US counter-terrorism strategy is shifting. President Barack Obama has said he wants to end the war, not just in Afghanistan, but also, ultimately against al-Qaida. Congress has also been making its first attempts to claw back some of the unprecedented powers it gave the president to wage war when, just after […]

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The Abbottabad Files: ‘Guests’ and ‘brothers’ at the AfPak border

Thomas Ruttig •

Just around the first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by US Special Operations Forces, the US government decided to release 17 al-Qaeda documents(1) that were found in his last refuge in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. 17 out of 6,000 seized documents is not much, and it is open how representative this selection is […]

Regional Relations Read more

6 July 2011 AAN’s Kate Clark in the Frontline Club

AAN • admin •

On 6 July, AAN’s Kate Clark will be on the panel of the prestigious Frontline Club in London discussing ‘Kill/Capture missions in Afghanistan’. Her AAN report on a bungled ‘intelligence-driven’ US Special Forces operation 2010 in Takhar province in Northern Afghanistan has made some waves. Following the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Frontline […]

Events Read more

Al-Qaeda headless – Taleban unaltered

Thomas Ruttig •

The symbiotic relationship between al-Qaeda and the Taleban had been over-emphasised. Therefore, the impact on them by OBL’s death will remain limited, argues AAN’s Thomas Ruttig – in part 2 of a series of still raw thoughts on the Abbottabad raid. ‘Bin Laden had mostly taken on a symbolic role and his removal doesn’t directly […]

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The Afghan War without Osama – seven boiled-down thoughts

Martine van Bijlert •

So what to add to the cacophony of opinion and analysis that has already filled the airwaves and the internet? Some thoughts, boiled down to their very basic bottom-line. I don’t think the death of bin Laden will directly impact the fighting capabilities of any of the parties engaged in the war in Afghanistan. I […]

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AAN Reads: The Great Talqaida Myth

Thomas Ruttig •

Al-Qaida and the Taleban are basically the same, they are fanatical Islamist extremists who hate the West and are an imminent danger for all of us. This, at least, is what one influential school of terrorism experts says – which informs the latest US policy on Afghanistan which, on paper, concentrates on ‘disrupting’ al-Qaida while, […]

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