Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Prisoners

Prisoners

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”

Kate Clark •

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 […]

Special Reports Read more

A Son of Nangrahar Paints the Sea: Afghan artwork from Guantanamo

Kate Clark •

As an art exhibition featuring the works of eight current and former Guantanamo detainees, Yemeni, Algerian, Pakistani and Kuwaiti, is now showing in New York, we thought we would look at the paintings and sculptures of an Afghan who is still in the prison camp, who is not featured in the exhibition. Assad (known in […]

Context and Culture Read more

Thematic Dossier VII: Detentions in Afghanistan – Bagram, Transfer and Torture

Kate Clark •

One of the most controversial aspects of the 2001 intervention has ended: the United States’ detention on Afghan soil of men accused of involvement in the insurgency. At its peak, the US military detention facility on Bagram airbase held more than 3000 detainees. In the early years, there had also been a number of CIA […]

Dossiers Read more

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (10): Bagram closing: Lawyers worried about ‘ghost detainees’ (an update)

Kate Clark •

Pakistani lawyers have told AAN they fear that when the United States closes its detention facility at Bagram at the end of the year, there may still be ‘ghost detainees’, men whose names, identities – and fate – remains unknown to the outside world. Since the earliest days of the war, the United States has […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Karzai struggles against foreign detentions – state releases Taleban?

Kate Clark •

In the last weeks of his presidency, President Hamed Karzai has again been trying to eradicate the last traces of foreign involvement in detentions, sending a commission to investigate the so-called Tor Jail, an American interrogation facility on Bagram airbase, and reactivating the Afghan Review Board, which had been sifting detainees transferred by the US […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (8): A full list of foreign detainees at Bagram?

Kate Clark •

 The United States military has always been highly secretive about the men it holds at the detention centre on Bagram airbase, only ever releasing one list of names – in February 2009, following a Freedom of Information request. AAN’s Kate Clark has been going through various sources of information and has put together what may […]

War and Peace Read more

Ein filmreifer Deal und viele Fragen

Thomas Ruttig •

Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland), 5 June 2014 Article (in German) about the Afghan prisoner swap between the US and the Taleban, with quotes of AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, saying, among other things that  fears the Taleban could learn from their success with Bergdahl that it pays to abduct US soldiers are unrealistic, that the choice of Qatar as a […]

AAN in the Media Read more

Bergdahl and the ‘Guantanamo Five’: The long-awaited US-Taleban prisoner swap

Kate Clark •

The prisoner swap negotiated between the Taleban and United States has seen the release of the captured US soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in return for five Taleban held at Guantanamo Bay, including one of the movement’s founders, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and the former chief of the army staff, Mullah Fazl. Much of the reporting on the […]

International Engagement Read more

A Matter of Honor: Why So Many Soldiers Are Angry at the Bergdahl Deal

AAN •

The National Interest, 3 June 2014 On this right-wing website, AAN gets flak (via a quote on the ThinkProgress blog) for its suggestion that all Taleban prisoners must be released with the end of the US military involvement in Afghanistan, “demonstrating willful ignorance of the law of armed conflict”: “Let’s state this as plainly as possible: […]

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Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What

AAN •

Think Progress (blog), 2 June 2014 This article uses the biographies of the five exchanged Taleban prisoners compiled by AAN as a background.    

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Afghan government angered by Bergdahl, Taliban prisoners swap

AAN •

Stars and Stripes, 2 June 2014 “I think (Karzai’s government is) very upset at the way that it has happened, in that they haven’t been consulted,” said Borhan Osman, an analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network. … He also elaborates about past attempts of an US-Taleban prisoner swap: The U.S. had been hoping to make such […]

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Taliban released for Bergdahl important cadres

AAN •

AFP/Global Post, 1 June 2014 Short bios of the five Telaban prisoners from Guantanamo, swapped for Bowe Bergdahl, based on AAN material.

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