Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Taleban

Taleban

Who Gets to Go to School? (3): Are Taleban attitudes starting to change from within?

Sabawoon Samim •

In the last of our three reports on the Taleban and education, especially of girls, we turn to what seems to be a relatively new trend. Guest author Sabawoon Samim* has been looking at views of girls’ education within the Taleban movement and finds it notable that some Taleban are now seeking out school and […]

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Who Gets to Go to School? (2) The Taleban and education through time

S Reza Kazemi • Kate Clark •

In trying to understand Taleban policy on state education, especially for girls, our first report heard from people around the country. They painted a picture of primary schools for boys and girls, and boys’ secondary schools having generally re-opened after the Taleban captured power on 15 August, but of girls’ secondary schools opening only very patchily. […]

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Who Gets to Go to School? (1): What people told us about education since the Taleban took over

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

Taleban policy towards women and girls is one of the prisms through which the movement has been studied – and judged – ever since the Taleban first came to power in the mid-nineties. A touchstone for many Afghans and outside observers was whether, after capturing power nationally in August 2021, they would allow girls to […]

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Taleban fighters celebrate their capture of Jalalabad, on 15 August 2021. Photo: AFP

Afghanistan’s conflict in 2021 (2): Republic collapse and Taleban victory in the long-view of history

Kate Clark •

For the first time in the long decades of conflict endured by Afghans since the 1978 communist coup sparked armed rebellion, Afghanistan is largely at peace. And for only the second time in that period, the country is under one unitary authority. This then is a historic moment, but will it last? In the second […]

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Afghanistan’s Conflict in 2021 (1): The Taleban’s sweeping offensive as told by people on the ground

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As Afghanistan’s former leaders publicly reflect and comment on the events that led to the fall of the Republic, it has been easy to lose sight of what those months in the summer of 2021 were like for the people who lived through them. In this first of two reports we look back at 2021’s […]

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Living in a Collapsed Economy (2): Even the people who still have money are struggling

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

In this second instalment of ‘Living in a Collapsed Economy,’ we seek to map what Afghanistan’s economic collapse means, at the household level, for the relatively fortunate – those who were wealthy to start with or had a diverse set of income streams, as well as those who still have a stable salary. We hear […]

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One Afghan wins in court, while other Guantanamo detainees remain ensnared in a rigged system

Kate Clark •

A landmark court ruling, which saw a Guantanamo detainee successfully argue that his detention was unlawful for the first time in more than a decade, has now been published. The judge said that the United States no longer had the legal authority to detain Asadullah Harun Gul because his faction, Hezb-e Islami, “is at peace.” […]

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Music Censorship in 2021: The silencing of a nation and its cultural identity

Fabrizio Foschini •

Music and musicians once again face serious threats following Afghanistan’s takeover by the Taleban in August this year. Over the past two decades, the theory and practice of traditional Afghan instruments, as well as other musical forms, has seen a remarkable revival after the destruction of the country’s musical heritage during the 1990s, with skills […]

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Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: Afghanistan’s economic distress post-15 August

Kate Clark •

Even as the Taleban celebrated their unprecedented victory on 15 August 2021, Afghanistan was transformed. It was poorer, more isolated and extremely fragile, economically. Most aid stopped, sanctions came into effect against the Taleban government and foreign reserves were frozen. Economic disaster came on top of the worst drought in years and the ill-effects of […]

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What now for the Taleban and Narcotics? A case study on cannabis

Fazl Rahman Muzhary •

It has been more than a year since the Taleban banned the cultivation of cannabis and the production and trafficking of cannabis resin, known as hashish, in areas of Afghanistan under their control. The Taleban put a great deal of effort into formulating the ban, consulting Islamic scholars and various of their commissions before issuing […]

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The Khalid Payenda Interview (2): Reforms, regrets and the final bid to save a collapsing Republic

Kate Clark • Roxanna Shapour •

In this second part of this interview, former Minister of Finance Khalid Payenda talks to AAN’s Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour about the reaction of the Republic’s leadership to his plans to get the economy back on track and fight corruption and whether it was already too late to effect meaningful change. He gives a […]

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The Taleban’s Caretaker Cabinet and other Senior Appointments

Martine van Bijlert •

After three rounds of senior appointments — on 7 September, 21 September and 4 October – most key posts appear to have been filled, at least in Kabul. These appointments have solved the immediate question of who will head the state institutions that will help restart the government. However, given the uncertainties about how the […]

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