Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Kabul

Kabul

Dangerous ‘truth’: The Kabul women’s poetry club

AAN •

BBC, 21 October 2013 Lyse Doucet's story about Kabul's Mirman (Mrs) Baheer literary society, continuing a tradition of women's poetry from Malalai and Rabia Balkhi: "We take pure and sacred words and express our feelings with those words. But I know my society has this belief that writing poetry is a sin."

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Football Victory II: A night and a day of celebrations

AAN Team •

It was a burst of massive happiness, a moment of sheer bliss and pride, something few Afghans have experienced much of in the past and thus even more powerful: only moments after Afghanistan won the South Asian Football Federation Championship, defeating India with 2:0, waves of people filled the streets of Kabul and many other […]

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What came out of the Peace Talks in Islamabad? An Afghan and a Pakistani take

Reza Rumi •

Did the Afghan-Pakistani peace talks in Islamabad over the past two days yield results to speak of? There were surprisingly positive moments – moments that justified the hope pinned on this trip. Then again, listening in closer to the concluding statements of the Pakistani Prime Minister and the Afghan President, both leaders seemed to be […]

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Kabul’s Utterly Mundane Urban Planning Crisis

Martine van Bijlert •

Citylab.com, 21 August 2013 Article on Kabul’s urban planning crisis quotes Fabrizio Foschini’s dispatch on the conflicts that have broken out between different claimants to the land in Deh Sabz, where the Afghan government plans to establish the ambitious New Kabul City.

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Land Grabs (2): Deh Sabz, the new and the old

Fabrizio Foschini •

Kuchi nomads on their way to becoming sedentary and foreign and local investors planning a prestigious Kabul New City development project end up competing for the same piece of land. A recent, dramatic fire fight between the Kabul police and the armed supporters of a Kuchi leader in Deh Sabz sounded like an alarm bell […]

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A Journey’s End: Returning to Kabul after three decades

Ali M Latifi •

Nearly 30 years ago, the mother of AAN guest author Ali M. Latifi fled Kabul from the Soviet-backed regime, holding her three children by the hand. Shortly before this year’s Ramadan began, she came back for the first time. She wanted to visit Ali, her youngest child, who now works in Kabul. And she wanted […]

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The Road to Ghazni: Bombs, battles and blockades

Borhan Osman •

Step outside Kabul, about 30 miles away, and the road to Ghazni starts to bring you the sense of the battlefield. You pass by fierce skirmishes, exploding bombs, burning oil tankers, gun-toting Afghan forces and convoys of US forces that look hostile to anyone Afghan. Some drivers have gotten so used to the constant violence […]

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A Slow Start: Afghan voter registration in urban centres first

Obaid Ali • Ali M Latifi •

On 25 May 2013, voter registration for the 2014 presidential election officially kicked off throughout Afghanistan. Female registration has been slow, even though the process is for the moment limited to the provincial capitals. Also general turn-out has been quite low and the process has proven to be cumbersome. It is however still very early […]

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War Doves: The Afghan sport of pigeon flying

Fabrizio Foschini •

It is a familiar sight in Kabul’s springtime skies: pigeons flying in thick flocks, circling and dipping, reacting to a man on a rooftop waving a stick. Kaftar bazi or the Play of Pigeons is an Afghan national sport – one of the calmer sort. This doesn’t mean it isn’t highly competitive. AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini […]

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After the ‘operational pause’: How big is the insurgents’ 2013 spring offensive?

Thomas Ruttig •

With two high-profile attacks in Kabul and one in Jalalabad in the two last weeks, Afghanistan’s insurgents seem to have made true on their promise of a ‘monumental’ spring offensive. In terms of propaganda, the three attacks were successful: the media in Afghanistan and abroad gave the incidents wide coverage. AAN Co-Director Thomas Ruttig has […]

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About Discrimination and Internet Access: Another student protest in Kabul

Niamatullah Ibrahimi •

The 24 May complex Taleban attack in the heart of Kabul and, to a lesser extent, the demonstration of Kabul University students against the Law for the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW law) overshadowed another student protest in the Afghan capital. For eight days ending yesterday, some 80 students mostly of the Social Science […]

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Inspiration in Kabul: Nancy Dupree and the Opening of the Afghanistan Centre

Kate Clark •

The Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU) has been officially opened. A beautiful, airy building with a central green courtyard, it has space for both researchers and the Centre’s collection of 80,000 (and increasing) documents collected over the last three decades. The driving force behind the project is Nancy Hatch Dupree who said that ‘for […]

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