Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Kabul

Kabul

A Black Week in Kabul: Terror and protests

Martine van Bijlert • Thomas Ruttig •

It has been an incredibly difficult week for Kabul. In four days, over a hundred people were killed and several hundreds injured – most of them in a massive terrorist attack in central Kabul on 31 May 2017. Two days later, as angry protests threatened to become violent, the police opened fire killing and injuring […]

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What Links Sarajevo to Kabul? Impressions from the western end of the Persianate world

Thomas Ruttig •

Sarajevo and Kabul lie over 4,000 kilometres apart. One feature that connects the two cities, however, is that both were destroyed during civil wars in the last decade of the twentieth century. Earlier this year, when AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig visited Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia during a vacation, he came across […]

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Power transmission line in Balkh province. Photo: Jelena Bjelica (2011).

Power to the People (2): The TUTAP protests

Thomas Ruttig •

When protesters interrupted President Ashraf Ghani’s speech in London three times on 13 May 2016, the heated controversy surrounding the route of TUTAP, a main electricity grid initiative, received even international attention. In Afghanistan, the tensions have been simmering since January 2016 when Hazara members of the government started trying to prevent a potential rerouting of […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more
The large Zabul Seven protests in Kabul, 11 November 2015. Photo: Pajhwok.

The ‘Zabul Seven’ Protests: Who speaks for the victims?

Martine van Bijlert •

On 11 November 2015, Kabul witnessed probably one of the largest demonstrations in recent history. The trigger was the slaughter of seven Hazara travellers who had been taken hostage in Zabul province about a month ago. The demonstration, which continued well into the night, became an amalgam of emotions and agendas: grief and horror over […]

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Homeless and Unwanted: How Kabul’s drug users are driven from place to place

Jelena Bjelica • Qayoom Suroush •

The 2015 summer campaign to push drug users out from under the bridge in Pol-e Sokhta and close the ‘addict town’ there has turned into a public spectacle with groups of drug addicts being herded around by the police. Complaints by the surrounding community had forced the police to act, resulting in the partial dispersal of […]

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“But This Gang Of Ministers Could Neither Fly Nor Swim Properly”: Memoirs from 1920s Afghanistan (Book Review)

Jolyon Leslie •

In 1927, a tumultuous time for Afghanistan as King Amanullah attempted comprehensive social reforms, an Indian teacher, Syed Mujtaba Ali, came to Kabul. His travelogue, “In A Land Far From Home”, published in India in 1948, very entertainingly reports on Kabul during those days, recalling encounters on the street as well as with the Afghan […]

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The Triple Attack in Kabul: A message? If so, to whom?

Kate Clark •

Kabul is facing the aftermath of yet another suicide attack, this time at the entrance to the airport where early reports suggested 21 people were killed or injured. People in the capital were already in shock from the bloody events of 7 August: three attacks in 24 hours that killed more than 50 people and […]

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The Killing of Farkhunda (1): The physical environment and the social types party to her murder

Fabrizio Foschini • Naheed Esar Malikzay •

40 days after the violent killing of Farkhunda, supporters gathered on Monday, 27 April 2015, to mourn and protest her death. Afghan public opinion has now reached a broad consensus over the unprecedented gravity of this murder. Yet, many questions remain as to what triggered the killing and how it was possible for such a […]

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Under Pul-e Sukhta bridge. Photo: Qayoom Suroush

Under the Bridge: The drug addicts’ scene in Kabul

Qayoom Suroush •

Addiction to drugs is an often underestimated phenomenon in Afghanistan. Thousands of people become addicted to drugs every year in a country that is the world’s major producer of opiates, although many of them developed the habit while living abroad as refugees. In Kabul, they concentrate in western areas of the city, living in veritable […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Bala Hissar, Sherpur fortress and Arg: The architecture of power in Kabul

Bill Woodburn •

Throughout the centuries, the seat of power in Kabul has almost always been within the walls of a strong fortress-palace. That will continue, as whatever the outcome of the current election, the new president will continue to live in the Arg. Guest author Bill Woodburn*, retired military engineer and specialist in fortified architecture, traces the […]

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Killing of Americans at Kabul hospital highlights foreigners’ risk

AAN •

Los Angeles Times, 25 April 2014 In another article about the killing of three medical staff of a NGO-run hospital in Kabul, AAN's Kate Clark is quoted with an explanation: "They [foreign civilians] can be seen as the soft underbelly of the intervention, an easy way to hit Western governments rather than trying to fight […]

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Afghan Officer Kills 3 Americans at Hospital

AAN •

Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2014 In an article on the killing of three medical staff at a NGO-run hospital in Kabul, AAN's Kate Clark tries an explanation:  "There is perhaps the start of a trend of foreign civilians being targeted," said Kate Clark, a veteran analyst with the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts Network. "For various […]

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