Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Taleban

Taleban

PEACE JIRGA BLOG 3: Preparing the Delegates

Kate Clark •

The long-anticipated and twice-delayed ‘consultative peace jirga’ is about to happen. Delegates from across Afghanistan have been arriving in Kabul and the press corps of the world is arriving to report on them. Journalists are here in such numbers that AAN is wondering if there will be more reporters than delegates. Diplomats are also excited […]

War and Peace Read more

Drugs, plots and stockpiles: Afghanistan’s failing poppy crop

Kate Clark •

A mysterious desease is spreading through Afghanistan’s poppy fields: Is it a secret counter-narcotics operation or simply caused by nature? And what do ‘the markets say’? Answers given by Kate Clark, AAN Senior Analyst ‘Reports of a “mysterious” fungus that has damaged opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have hit international headlines’ writes a breathless commentator […]

Context and Culture Read more

“Oh let it rain, let it rain on the fields, let it drench the head scarf of my beloved”

Kate Clark •

Going to Bamian and Yakaolang brings up a lot of memories and shows how times have changed since Taleban times. An AAN ‘travel blog’, by Kate Clark, currently a Senior Analyst with AAN. Getting out of Kabul for me usually means heading to the hot and dusty south or south east to report on the […]

Context and Culture Read more

New Bureaucracies to Welcome ‘Upset Brothers’

Kate Clark •

Jobs, training, psychosocial counselling and block grants: A look at the Afghan government’s new ‘peace and reintegration’ plan to bring home the Taleban. By Kate Clark (with input from Thomas Ruttig) Reading the draft of the Afghan government’s programme for peace and reintegration is a surreal experience, starting with the opening and the first sentence’s […]

Political Landscape Read more

PEACE JIRGA BLOG 2: Peace Jirga goes to Washington: whose opinions count on reconciling Taliban?

Kate Clark •

‘Peace Jirga goes to Washington,’ was the headline in Payam-e Mujahid newspaper this week. The headline sums up how politics have been on hold in Afghanistan since President Karzai was invited to Washington and also, very succinctly, where the power of decision-making in Afghanistan lies. By Kate Clark, currently engaged as Senior Analyst with AAN. […]

War and Peace Read more

Counterinsurgency in Kandahar: what happened to the fence?

Martine van Bijlert •

A short visit to Kandahar, as it has been a while. In the afternoon there is a donkey cart bomb several blocks away. It kills three children, destroys a police post and rattles the office I am visiting. The blast of moving air tells the body something about vulnerability that it had forgotten. In the […]

War and Peace Read more

Separating the government, the Taliban and the people (2): Meanwhile in the provinces

Martine van Bijlert •

Meanwhile in the provinces the lines are blurring even further. This is illustrated by recent instructions from the Quetta shura on how to treat people working for the government or the internationals. The instructions were communicated to Taliban commanders in the south by traveling delegations and are said to have included a set of pointers […]

Political Landscape Read more

Separating the government, the Taliban and the people (1): Karzai and the confusion in Kabul

Martine van Bijlert •

Over the last few days Karzai has found it increasingly difficult to stop saying in public all the things that he has been saying in private for months: who do these foreigners think they are, what are they playing at, and do they really think they can push me and my people around forever? Observers […]

Political Landscape Read more

PEACE JIRGA BLOG 1: How serious is the Peace Jirga?

Martine van Bijlert •

While the press makes it sound like a deal with Hekmatyar is just around the corner now that a 15-point plan has been presented, and while the Taliban continue to deny their involvement in any kind of talks and continue to adapt to the twin pressures of military operations in Afghanistan and high-level arrests in […]

Political Landscape Read more

26-28 March 2010, Bonn: Conference ‘Who Are the Taliban?’

AAN • admin •

The conference jointly organized by Arbeitsgemeinschaft Afghanistan (Afghanistan Working Group of German academia) and Evangelische Akademie im Rheinland is designed to shed light on the background of the Taleban phenomenon. The main presentations (in German) are given by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig (‘Organisational Structures of the Afghan Taleban’) and Jochen Hippler (‘Pakistan’s Taleban’) For more information […]

Events Read more

How ‘neo’ were the ‘Neo-Taleban’?

Thomas Ruttig •

Since the Taleban’s quick resurgence after the fall of their regime in 2001, their insurgency often is described with the term ‘Neo-Taleban’. Here it is argued, though, that there was more continuity than change from the pre-9/11 to the post-9/11 Taleban movement. The real ‘neo-Taleban’ might emerge now – after the arrest of accommodation-inclined Taleban […]

War and Peace Read more

Don’t Call That Warlord a Warlord

Antonio Giustozzi •

In Afghanistan, some feel insulted when they are called a ‘warlord’. Some rather call them, euphemistically, ‘local power brokers’ or ‘strongmen’. The author of this blog thinks that the term still is useful – but that it should not be used randomly and proposes a sharper definition. By Antonio Giustozzi. This blog first appeared on […]

War and Peace Read more

Subscribe to receive updates from the Afghanistan Analysts Network

Sign up