Analytical articles

Manija Mirzaie Health Policy 19/12/2024 An Afghan woman amongst ruins caused by ongoing conflict in the country. Medical institutions were the last hope for Afghan girls and women seeking higher education since the Taliban banned schools and universities for women “Why do you torture us every day? Just give us poison and end it all,”

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 14 Dec 2024 House prices and rents in the Afghan capital are on the rise again, according to estate agents and tenants. There was a sharp decline in both prices and rents when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) took power in August 2021. Now, people who need

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, December 12, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS Opium poppy cultivation fell again in 2024, the second year of the Taliban’s ban. Poppy has been replaced by wheat, a low-value crop, boding ill for the economy, poverty and the ban’s future. Foreign influence on Taliban drug policies is

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Dec 2024 In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from a woman who did most of her growing up under the first Islamic Emirate which banned girls of all ages from going to school. She came late to education, but strove to be a

World Bank DECEMBER 4, 2024 WASHINGTON, December 4, 2024—The Afghan economy is showing signs of moderate growth, but still faces significant headwinds, including fiscal constraints, trade imbalances, and a limited capacity for public investment, according to the World Bank’s latest Afghanistan Development Update.Afghanistan’s economic recovery remains uncertain. Modest GDP growth of 2.7%, driven by private consumption,

Rachel Reid Afghanistan Analysts Network 29 Nov 2024 In the spring of 2023, a campaign was launched to create a new international crime of gender apartheid. Campaigners argue that the oppression of women and girls is so total and severe in Afghanistan and Iran that it is akin to the systematic and hierarchical racist oppression

Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network  24 Nov 2024 The 29th UN Climate Change Conference, or COP29, which was hosted by the Republic of Azerbaijan, concluded on 24 November 2024 in Baku, with a delegation from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in attendance. This was the first time the Emirate had participated in a UN-organised conference

By Sola Mahfouz Middle East Center Wilson Center November 21, 2024 Sola Mahfouz reflects on representations of Afghan women in Western media and discourse. She argues that engagement with Afghan women’s full and complex lives is necessary for effective policymaking. If the suffering of Afghan women is real and harrowing, then the global response often

By Natalia Winkelman The New York Times Nov. 21, 2024 Bread & Roses Directed by Sahra Mani Documentary Three Afghan women struggle for rights in Sahra Mani’s documentary of life under Taliban rule today. The documentary “Bread & Roses” follows the lives of three Afghan women in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power.Credit…Apple Original

Andreas Stefansson Al Jazeera Published On 21 Nov 2024 The world is facing a climate crisis, and few nations are feeling its impact more acutely than Afghanistan. It is currently ranked seventh on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of countries most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change. Afghanistan’s population is caught in a

Emma Jones BBC News 19 Nov 2024 Malala Yousafzai and Jennifer Lawrence tell the BBC about their new documentary Bread & Roses, which highlights the stories and voices of Afghan women resisting the Taliban. It’s being called “gender apartheid” by the UN. In August 2021, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. A generation of women who had

By Jens Vesterlund Mathiesen, Adam Weinstein, and Galina Mikkelsen Foreign Policy Magazine NOVEMBER 14, 2024 Regional engagement shows the possibilities—and obstacles—in Afghanistan. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid arrives to attend a press conference in Kabul.Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid arrives to attend a press conference in Kabul on July 3, following the third Doha meeting.   (0) With Donald Trump’s

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, November 14, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS U.N. cash dollars for humanitarian aid also buttress Afghanistan’s balance of payments and inject liquidity. A cash squeeze could destabilize a fragile economic equilibrium. With good policies, the Afghan central bank and external donors can mitigate risks posed by dwindling

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON November 12, 2024 READ IN APP The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Afghanistan’s Taliban offered its congratulations to the American people for “not handing leadership of their great country to a woman.” Taliban leaders expressed optimism that Trump’s election would enable a new chapter in the history of

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 13 Nov 2024  Although the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) ban on opium cultivation continues largely to hold, the area under poppy did increase in 2024, by almost a fifth, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) annual survey. Even with that increase, however, this year’s

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 10 Nov 2024 Some tales of generosity and compassion, of tragedy, heartache and life-changing decisions, span the generations. One such story is Ruzi Khan’s, a day labourer from Helmand province, who has opened his home to a destitute widow and her six young children. While the widow is

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 3 Nov 2024 David Page was the first editor of the BBC Pashto service when it was set up in 1981, and also served for almost 30 years on the Board of Trustees for Afghanaid, for ten years as the NGO’s chair. He has died after a brief illness at

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Oct 2024 Afghanistan has barely featured in next week’s United States presidential elections except in the most minor way, as a political football kicked about by the two candidates seeking to blame the other for the debacle of the 2021 withdrawal and the Taleban’s capture of power. Even so,

By Christina Goldbaum Christina Goldbaum has reported from Afghanistan for more than three years, arriving in Kabul just before the Taliban seized power in 2021. The New York Times Oct. 24, 2024 For three years, there was one powerful, elusive figure I wanted to speak with in Afghanistan: Sirajuddin Haqqani. During the U.S.-led war there, he

Gaisu Yari Woodrow Wilson International Center October 23, 2024 Wilson Center Fellow Gaisu Yari reflects on the outcomes of the All Women Summit in Albania, examines the various avenues being utilized to hold the Taliban accountable for their violation of women’s human rights, and recommends pathways forward for the global movement to uphold women’s rights

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 20 Oct 2024 Poetry forms a rich and popular strand of Afghan culture that can have real influence on society, and the Taleban, as insurgents, and now as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) have drawn on this. During the insurgency, poetry was an important propaganda tool used to promote

Annie Kelly The Guardian Wed 9 Oct 2024 Activists hope a change in international law could help to address the intensifying erosion of women and girls’ rights in Afghanistan Over the past three years, the world has watched in horror as women and girls in Afghanistan have had their rights and freedoms systematically stripped away. In the

BY: Palwasha L. Kakar;  Mohammad Osman Tariq United States Institute of Peace Thursday, October 3, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS Vice and virtue law weaponizes religion to justify Taliban’s oppressive rule. New law faces opposition from within the Taliban’s ranks, governors, religious leaders and civil society. The international community should prevent the further erosion of human rights

Rachel Reid Afghanistan Analysts Network 3 Oct 2024 The government of Afghanistan has been warned that its violations of women’s rights will trigger a referral to the United Nation’s highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – unless it changes its policies. The initiative, taken by Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands and

By Mona Thakkar and Vidyut S Insights The Global Network on Extremism and Technology 20th September 2024 Introduction  The exit of the US forces and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover of Kabul in August 2021 has significantly reshaped the Afghanistan-Pakistan militant landscape, emboldening the Taliban’s allies and adversaries alike. Its ally, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Pakistan’s largest militant group,

Rebeca Joy Blemur North American Congress on Latin America/NACLA May 10, 2024 A new book recovers the intellectual contribution of Haitian revolutionaries to ideas of freedom, equality, and sovereignty in the Atlantic World. The cover of “Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution” by Marlene L. Daut. (UNC Press, 2023) “Envision your

Jelena Bjelica • Ali Mohammad Sabawoon Afghanistan Analysts Network 29 Sep 2024  It is almost a year since, on 3 October 2023, Pakistan’s Prime Minister announced its decision to enact the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan. Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland. These returns were not voluntary. Some Afghans were deported, while others

BY JAMES DURSO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR   The Hill 09/23/24 1:00 PM ET Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, recently declared he will defeat the Taliban “no matter the odds.” For Massoud to mount a military threat to the Taliban, he would need the cooperation of the Central Asian republics, Iran or Pakistan

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;   Joyana Richer;  Jill Baggerman;  William Byrd, Ph.D.;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Thursday, September 19, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS Afghanistan has a façade of domestic stability, with armed conflict decreasing since the U.S. withdrawal. But dire economic, humanitarian and human rights conditions and Taliban violence build pressure on the population. The

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Lauren Baillie;  Grace Luloff United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, September 18, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS The ICC case and Taliban policies reflect systematic efforts to oppress women. The similarities between the two underscore a vital need for ICC intervention. The ICC prosecution shows a clear legal approach to gender-based violence, unlike the

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 17 Sep 2024 The ban on girls’ secondary education, together with other policies by the Islamic Emirate, have severely affected the lives of female teachers across Afghanistan. This is seldom truer than it is in Shughnan, a mountainous district in Badakhshan province where men and women have long specialised in

Lakshmi Venugopal Menon PhD candidate at the Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University Published On 14 Sep 202414 Sep 2024 The recently announced vice and virtue law reflects efforts by the Taliban’s old guard to consolidate power at the expense of internal unity. On August 21, a strict public morality law was issued in Afghanistan. The

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 12 Sep 2024 Accountability for war crimes and human rights violations in Afghanistan has been on the agenda this week at the 57th annual session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. For almost half a century, various Afghan factions, governments and foreign forces have perpetrated abuses – indiscriminate bombing, torture

Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security By: GIWPS | September 10, 2024 Women are now forbidden from showing their faces or using their voices in Afghanistan after the Taliban issued a new restriction in August. Since their takeover three years ago, approximately 100 of the Taliban’s edicts have specifically targeted women and girls constituting what many consider gender apartheid.

By Metra Mehran Ms. Mehran is an Afghan activist and policy specialist. The New York Times September 9, 2024 Ever since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021 with promises that — this time — they would be more moderate, they have played a deceitful game. The Taliban government has introduced one decree after another, incrementally

U.S. Department of State OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON SEPTEMBER 9, 2024 The Department appreciates the Committee’s longstanding interest in Afghanistan policy, and we strongly believe in Congress’s independent role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. We remain committed to working with Congress on its oversight requests and advancing the interests of the American people. Since 2021,

Kate Clark • AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network 8 Sep 2024 There is a consensus that the private sector is crucial to getting any real growth back into the Afghan economy – described by the World Bank as “persistently stagnant.” Long-term growth, it said, was contingent on a “more resilient, private-sector led economy that capitalizes on the nation’s

Analysis by Glenn Kessler The Washington Post September 5, 2024 Trump frequently suggests, as he did in a TikTok filmed at Arlington Cemetery, that an 18-month period without hostile-fire deaths took place entirely in his presidency. “We didn’t lose one person in 18 months. And then they took over that disaster.” — Former president Donald Trump,

John Butt Afghanistan Analysts Network 31 Aug 2024 The Islamic Emirate’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued a new law laying out the duties, powers and punishments available to the enforcers of the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice. The law also specifies numerous acts and particular behaviour that the Emirate deems either obligatory or

The Guardian Sun 1 Sep 2024 11.38 EDT Simon Diggins on offering resettlement and educational opportunities to those living under the Taliban regime and Margaret Owen on connecting schoolgirls in Britain and Kabul Your harrowing report on the worsening oppression of women in Afghanistan reminds us that our business in that country, despite the withdrawal of troops

Shadi Khan Saif The Guardian Sun 1 Sept 2024 This brave journalist and young women like her are bearing the brunt of the failed democratisation project: ‘Hope is fading’ 60In the final days of the Afghan republic – in defiance of a looming takeover by the Taliban – the Hazara journalist Mani sang revolutionary poems in

Nicole Russell USA TODAY August 29, 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris should be held accountable for the devastating cruelty the administration’s choices unleashed. It’s hard to believe that in 2024, millions of women aren’t allowed to attend school past age 12, to bare their faces on the street or even to speak while in public. Yet, that

By Saad Mohseni Saad Mohseni is the co-founder, chairman and executive officer of Moby Group, Afghanistan’s largest media company, and the author of “Radio Free Afghanistan.” The Washington Post August 30, 2024  Afghanistan still has hope for a better future. The world needs to engage in order to sustain it. Three years have passed since

By the Editorial Board The Washington Post August 28, 2024  The Taliban wants to create a society of gender apartheid. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan after the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal, the radical Islamist group prohibited education for all girls beyond sixth grade. The Taliban said it was just a “temporary” measure. But then

Jelena Bjelica • Rohullah Sorush Afghanistan Analysts Network 25 Aug 2024 Afghanistan was, until recently, famously, the largest cultivator of illegal opiates in the world. Less well-known is that it is among the countries with the highest prevalence rates of drug use. In April 2022, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) banned poppy cultivation and subsequently, in

JOSHUA SKOVLUND Task and Purpose POSTED ON AUG 27, 2024 ISMAIL TELLS HIS HARROWING STORY, HIGHLIGHTING THE ENDEAVORS OF AFGHANS DURING THEIR ALLIANCE WITH THE U.S. MILITARY, AND AFTER. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT HAM) A U.S. Army vet and filmmaker explores the Afghanistan war and its ending through his interpreters, Ismail and Saifullah Haqmal. Working

Open Democracy August 22, 2022 Featured Story by Andrew North In late 2005, I travelled there to see it for myself. I stayed at the small American base in Lashkar Gah, the low-rise provincial capital, partly because there was already an advance British team there and I was hoping to find out more about their

Emma Jones Entertainment reporter BBC News 22 Aug 2024 Documentary Hollywoodgate has been a hit at international film festivals In August 2021, the world watched desperate scenes of multitudes fleeing Afghanistan as the Taliban swept into the capital, Kabul. Having regrouped in the decades after being driven out by the invasion that followed the 11

The Guardian Editorial Tuesday, 20 Aug 2024 Women have been stripped of their freedom, dignity and livelihoods. The international community must heed their demands Women barely feature in Hollywoodgate, the chilling and remarkable documentary on the Taliban currently showing in selected cinemas. Three years after their fighters marched back into Kabul in August 2021, this absence tells its

Wendy Ide The Guardian Sun 18 Aug 2024 Granted unprecedented, if strictly limited access, Egyptian ​d​ocumentarian Ibrahim Nash’at ​captures the Taliban’s inner circle after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan “If his intentions are bad, he will die soon.” Taliban commander Mawlawi Mansour smiles and glances at the camera as he speaks, the menace in his

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 19 Aug 2024  A senior figure overseeing the notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison in the 1980s who was convicted of war crimes in the Netherlands, where he had been given asylum, has seen his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. His lawyers successfully argued that Abdul Razaq Aref’s crimes –

Talmiz Ahmad The Wire Aug 15, 2024 An intrepid reporter’s first-hand account of the debacle next door. August 15, 2024 marks the third anniversary of the Taliban’s entry into Kabul After having dominated global headlines for over four decades, Afghanistan now evokes very little interest among international commentators. It is as if the international community

Kelsey Norman, Fellow for the Middle East, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University Ana Martín Gil. Research Manager, Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East, Baker Institute, Rice University The Conversation Rice University Published: August 14, 2024  Amid the chaos that followed the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, the Biden administration declared that

 Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Aug 2024 In 2004, a major report mapping the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Afghanistan between 1978 and 2001 was published by the United Nations before being swiftly taken down under political pressure, allegedly from then president Hamed Karzai, some of his ministers and foreign backers

Anonymous The author is a female Afghan aid worker The Guardian Thu 15 Aug 2024 05.00 EDT People who have fled Afghanistan encourage the international community to sever ties with our government. That only harms those of us still here The food market was a rare taste of former freedoms. But as two members of

Hephzibah Anderson The Guardian Tue 13 Aug 2024 The collective diary of 21 women, compiled using WhatsApp messages, is an intimate, courageous chronicle of life as it unfolds under Taliban rule In the immediate aftermath of Kabul’s shocking and rapid fall to the Taliban in August 2021, women across the Afghan capital began a painful process of textual

Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network  6 Aug 2024 Germany “strategically failed” in Afghanistan. This is the main finding of a scathing interim report commissioned by the country’s parliament to scrutinise Germany’s entire military and civilian mission in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. Germany has always prided itself on having been the second largest bilateral donor

Film by Salar Pashtoonyar The New Yorker July 31, 2024 An accusation levelled against a teen-age girl changes the course of her life, in Salar Pashtoonyar’s documentary about life after the Soviet-Afghan War.           Watch “Hills and Mountains.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/a-girls-forced-marriage-in-post-invasion-afghanistan-in-hills-and-mountains?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_Paid_073124&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=5bea14c03f92a404696e2d39&cndid=39594591&hasha=43f9c2541dc88da1936c3deea3cc1787&hashb=6ffd5f82eb12b03f6d75643f29c4fd0430c6292f&hashc=5b7b18deb62babdd3e762008bdc2495dd17b60565c634befcedfeb6a386d8b13&esrc=AUTO_OTHER&mbid=CRMNYR062419 Salar Pashtoonyar’s documentary short begins by discussing how the Soviet invasion of

By NAHAL TOOSI Politico 05/26/2024 07:00 AM EDT The Afghanistan War Commission’s probe is getting very real. If you played a role in Afghanistan policy over the past few decades, be prepared for a call. In their first joint interview since the launch of the Afghanistan War Commission, co-chairs and veteran Afghan policy thinkers Shamila Chaudhary

BY ELIOT WILSON OPINION CONTRIBUTOR The Hill 07/28/24 07:00 AM ET Last week the bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission held its first public hearing since it was established in 2021, with members of the foreign policy great-and-good offering testimony on the origins of the conflict and why re-examining it is important. It is a solemn and noble exercise,

Jelena Bjelica • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 29 Jul 2024 The order by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), Hibatullah Akhundzada, to cut the salaries of women on the public payroll to just 5,000 afghanis (70 US dollars) a month was a bombshell. The Amir’s order was short and ambiguously worded, driving anxiety

AAN Team • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 23 Jul 2024  Going on a picnic and spending time with your family, enjoying Afghanistan’s natural beauty, is a favourite pastime for Afghan families, especially in springtime. However, since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has imposed many restrictions on women and older girls, public parks in the country

By Ben Kenigsberg The New York Times July 18, 2024 Hollywoodgate Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at Documentary, War Not Rated 1h 32m The risks required to make “Hollywoodgate” also highlight its limitations.Credit…Fourth Act Film There is no question that the director Ibrahim Nash’at faced tremendous danger in shooting “Hollywoodgate,” but the risks required to make this documentary also

BY: Andrew Watkins United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, July 16, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS Taliban attendance and Afghan civil society’s exclusion at Doha 3 meeting was heavily criticized. Western states want Taliban to uphold human rights, but regional powers are more focused on Afghanistan stabilizing. Still, Doha 3 made progress toward more coordinated international engagement.

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network  27 Jun 2024 Afghanistan’s Community Development Councils (CDCs), which were established under the Islamic Republic by the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) and its successor Citizen’s Charter, have been abolished by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Government bodies have been told to coordinate economic projects with ulema councils instead.

Fawzia Koofi The Guardian Thu 27 Jun 2024 11.00 EDT Since it became clear that the Taliban will be the only Afghan voices at the table and women’s rights will not officially be on the agenda at the UN meeting on Afghanistan in Doha, I have received thousands of messages from women inside and outside the country

By Richard Bennett Mr. Bennett is the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. The New York Times June 28, 2024 In May 2022, nine months after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, I visited a girls’ secondary school that was still open in the north in spite of a ban

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Afsana Rahimi United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, June 25, 2024 Potential areas of cooperation between the Taliban and the international community, such as private sector development and alternative livelihoods to now-banned opium poppy cultivation, will be on the agenda at a meeting of international envoys for Afghanistan hosted by the United

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, June 20, 2024 KEY TAKEAWAYS The ban on opium cultivation is working but failing to curb exports as landowners liquidate inventories. The ban is unsustainable and could trigger political tensions, even armed conflict. U.S. and other donors must be clear-eyed, tailoring responses and programs to

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 17 Jun 2024 Today is Eid-e Qurban, also known as Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, which marks the most important religious holiday in Islam. On this day, Afghans, across the country will sacrifice cows or sheep in remembrance of the Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his

Donald McRae Founder of Afghanistan women’s national team on fearing assassination and fleeing country then aiding 500 players and their families evacuate when the Taliban returned Guardian Sat 8 Jun 2024 03.00 EDT “They tried to silence me,” Khalida Popal says with unflinching clarity as she remembers the moment when, in 2011, she knew she had to

Alexander Matheou Al Jazeera Published On 7 Jun 2024 Trucks painted bright blue, yellow, and purple dot the arid emptiness of Spin Boldak in southern Afghanistan. Their roofs are laden with the entire possessions of families who have returned from Pakistan after decades of displacement. Hundreds of thousands have preceded them in recent months following a

Luke Harding The Observer Sun 2 June 2024 An ex-UK envoy’s compelling account of the chaotic military withdrawal from the country is full of telling details, while Seierstad’s latest work drives home the cruel reality of women’s lives after the return of Taliban rule In August 2021, Britain’s last ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Laurie Bristow, climbed

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  2 Jun 2024  After the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan closed girls’ high schools, thousands of older Afghan girls were left behind from education. With not much to do except help with the household chores, many families decided to enrol their girls in a madrasa so that they could

By Soo Kim Life & Trends Reporter Newsweek May 25, 2024 Dreaming of quitting your job to go traveling around the globe? Well, one American did just that on a quest to visit every country in the world and ended up at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “There was an eerie silence and stillness

By William H. McRaven The Atlantic magazine MAY 26, 2024 A poem for Memorial Day The Atlantic has often channeled the resources of poetry—its charged and immediate patterns of language—to mourn and memorialize the war dead. The earliest years of the magazine spanned the Civil War, during which the editors published dirges, elegies, and ballads that

By Azam Ahmed The New York Times May 22, 2024 A Times investigation uncovered a brutal campaign enacted by U.S.-backed forces during the war in Afghanistan. I covered the war in Afghanistan and went back after the Taliban took over. General Abdul Raziq was one of America’s fiercest allies in the fight against the Taliban.

By Azam Ahmed The New York Times. May 22, 2024 The only thing faster than the American withdrawal from Afghanistan might be how quickly the world moved on. The Biden Administration largely stopped talking about it. Most news organizations were already scaling back in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. But a question remained, at

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Jelena Bjelica Afghanistan Analysts Network 22 May 2024  Afghanistan’s retired public sector employees have not received their pensions since the toppling of the Republic and the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2021. In the almost three years since then, their pleas to the government to start paying what is

BY: Joyana Richer; Belquis Ahmadi United States Institute of Peace Thursday, May 16, 2024  KEY TAKEAWAYS Afghans of all backgrounds want more than the end of violence. They want true peace built on coexistence and reconciliation. Instead, the Taliban are imposing their views on Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic, cultural and religious groups. The international and regional community

By Deborah Castellano Lubov Vatican News 17 May 2024 Pope Francis on Wednesday made an appeal for the international community to provide necessary aid and support to the most vulnerable in Afghanistan where at least 300 people have been killed in flooding in 18 districts across at least three of the country’s northern provinces in

Mhd Assem Mayar Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 May 2024  In Afghanistan’s rugged landscape, floods arise from a multiplicity of causes: torrential rainfall, rain on snow, the rapid melting of snow due to warmer weather, glacial lake outbursts, the overflow of natural ponds or even the breach of dams. Regardless of their origins, floods can destroy

Letters The Guardian Wed 15 May 2024 12.17 EDT David Nicholson on how a ‘semi-dystopian future’ is already reality for millions, and Benny Dembitzer on how the financial approach to climate change only benefits rich countries As the global thermometer relentlessly inches upwards, revelations by top climate scientists of 2.5C warming this century (World’s top climate scientists expect

USIP Senior Study Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, May 14, 2024 Executive Summary When announcing the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in April 2021, President Joe Biden identified counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan as an enduring and critical US national security interest. This priority became even more pronounced

Sayed Asadullah Sadat Afghanistan Analysts Network 12 May 2024  The rain and snow that has fallen in recent weeks has eased the hearts of Afghan farmers and given them hope that the multi-year drought has finally ended. At the same time, heavy rain falling on dry, parched land has caused flooding in many areas of

BY: Ambassador Anne Patterson; Tricia Bacon, Ph.D.; Ambassador Michael P. McKinley; Joshua White, Ph.D.; Brian Finucane, Ph.D. Afghanistan Analysts Network Thursday, May 9, 2024 Washington should focus more attention and counterterrorism effort on Central and South Asia before it’s too late, says USIP senior study group. From wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to rising

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 5 May 2024  In Afghanistan, surma (kohl) has been used since ancient times by both men and women to enhance the eyes, for its healing properties and to protect the wearer against the evil eye. Traditionally made by grinding stibnite rock into a fine power, the use of the black

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, May 2, 2024 Business cannot be the economy’s savior, but it can help stabilize the situation with support from donors and the Taliban. Three years after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the country’s economy remains in a dismal state marked by depression-level price deflation,

Christian Bleuer Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Apr 2024 With the publication of the newest edition of the Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography, Christian Bleuer, who has been compiling and adding to it since 2004/5, looks at what it says about the state of scholarship on Afghanistan and comments on the past and future of research in this

Mahtab Eftekhar, as told to Zuhal Ahad The Guardian Fri 26 Apr 2024 00.00 EDT At the age of 10, while still in the third grade, I received news from my mother and stepfather that we would travel to Helmand province for my brother’s wedding. Little did I know, it was to be my own

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 21 Apr 2024 The Durand Line, which serves as the de facto border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has never been officially recognised by any Kabul government. It cuts through the heart of Pashtun tribes, who share family ties, religion and traditions. For most of its existence, it made little practical

Catherine Shoard The Guardian Fri 19 Apr 2024 The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril. “Strong women are not easy women,” says Jennifer Lawrence,

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 14 Apr 2024 For anyone who has spent any time in Kabul, handcart sellers and street vendors are a familiar sight, as they walk around the city hawking their wares from dusk to dawn trying to eke out a meagre living for their families. Street vendors say that

Interview by Jenni Doering “Living on Earth” October 14, 2023 A farmer from Khoshob village walks near his water reservoir near Kandahar airfield, in southern Afghanistan. Credit: Kern Hendricks From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Managing Producer Jenni Doering with freelance journalist Lynzy Billing.  JENNI DOERING:

By Christopher P. Costa and Colin P. Clarke The New York Times March 31, 2024 Mr. Costa was the special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2017 to 2018. Mr. Clarke is the director of research at the Soufan Group. For all of the counterterrorism wins that the

BY: Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Monday, April 1, 2024 ISIS-K’s recent attack on the Russian capital was, in part, intended to assert the organization’s growing capacity to inflict terror beyond its home base of Afghanistan. “By reaching Moscow, ISIS-K is trying to signal it has the geographic reach to hit anywhere in

Ian Cobain The Guardian Tue 2 Apr 2024 04.00 EDT The Belfast academic offers vitally important lessons about government strategies, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, warning that few campaigns are a complete success. In January 2002, during his State of the Union address, President George W Bush said that in “four short months” the US

Kate Clark • AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network  26 Mar 2024 The last few weeks have finally seen rain and snowfall in Afghanistan, raising hopes for farmers and herders that this year could be better than the last three drought years. Afghans typically categorise a drought year as one where the low amount of precipitation causes problems

Charli Carpenter World Politics Review Mar 26, 2024 This past week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings on the Biden administration’s controversial withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Retired Gens. Mark A. Milley and Kenneth McKenzie, who both served in leadership roles under President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, testified and faced questions from congressional leaders from both parties.

By Sheena Chestnut Greitens and Isaac Kardon Foreign Affairs March 15, 2024 Why Countries Get External Security From Washington—and Internal Security From Beijing On a visit to Budapest in late February, China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong, secured a face-to-face meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to establish a new bilateral security arrangement. China

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Jelena Bjelica Afghanistan Analysts Network 14 Mar 2024 In what used to be Afghanistan’s largest poppy-growing province, Helmand, cultivation plummeted by 99 per cent in 2023 following the Islamic Emirate’s ban on the crop in April 2022. Although opium trading largely continued, which brought windfall profits to anyone with opium stocks to sell,

Frank Ledwidge The Guardian Tue 12 Mar 2024 09.00 EDT The probe into 80 alleged SAS killings heard evidence from Johnny Mercer and highlighted the urgent need for oversight The Afghanistan inquiry is getting into gear at the Royal Courts of Justice. Led by the judge Charles Haddon-Cave, this public inquiry was convened to investigate about 80

Rohullah Sorush and Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 8 Mar 2024 When the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan returned to power in August 2021, thousands of Afghans who were working for NGOs left Afghanistan, fearing harassment by Afghanistan’s new rulers, or just taking an opportunity to start a new life elsewhere. Many have already found their

BY ALBERT TORRES OPINION CONTRIBUTOR The Hill 03/03/24 4:00 PM ET While the Taliban reap the benefits of their grand corruption, Afghanistan appears to be reverting to pre-9/11 conditions as it once again becomes a hotbed for terrorism. The Taliban maintain strong relationships with al-Qaida, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and the Tehrik-e-Jihad Pakistan. By offering such terrorist groups financial

BY JAMES DURSO OPINION CONTRIBUTOR The Hill 02/27/24 11:30 AM ET On Feb. 18 and 19, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened a meeting in Doha, Qatar, to discuss the “evolving situation” in Afghanistan and future engagement with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban declined an invitation to the meeting after the U.N. refused their conditions,

Chris Fitzgerald South China Morning Post 25 Feb, 2024 The world is willing to negotiate with the Taliban and help solve Afghanistan’s problems but, first, the de facto rulers must cut ties with al-Qaeda and address rising terrorism Islamic extremism is on the rise again in Afghanistan, with terrorists flourishing under Taliban rule. With the international community

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 1 Mar 2024 Afghanistan is back on the world’s agenda. The UN Security Council has met behind closed doors to hear about the recently held United Nations-convened meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, which the Islamic Emirate decided not to attend. The current rulers of Afghanistan, the Islamic Emirate, decided

BY: Belquis Ahmadi United States Institute of Peace Thursday, February 29, 2024 Disabled Afghans — particularly women — have been among the hardest hit by the Taliban’s rollback of human rights. In Afghanistan, obtaining accurate data on the number of persons with disabilities — including gender-disaggregated information — has always been a challenging endeavor. But based

By Benazir Habibzadeh on February 27, 2024 Benazir Habibzadeh fought for the right to education in Afghanistan; she writes a letter recounting her experience under the renewed Taliban regime. The Wilson Center MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM MIDDLE EAST WOMEN’S INITIATIVE My dreams were not much: just to have an Afghanistan where everyone—men and women alike—has equal rights and

PBS Newshour Feb 26, 2024 06:25 PM EST By — Amna Nawaz By — Stephanie Kotuby By — Alexa Gold When the Taliban roared back to power in Afghanistan in 2021, education activist Pashtana Durrani had some 7,000 girls enrolled in her organization. The schools were shuttered and Pashtana was forced to flee. She’s now living in exile

Fabrizio Foschini • Rama Mirzada Afghanistan Analysts Network 24 Feb 2024  The central highlands of the Hazarajat are gearing up for a third year of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) managing one of the most polarising land conflicts in the country, that between Hazara villagers and Pashtun nomads, the Kuchis. The re-establishment of the IEA in

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 17 Feb 2024 United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will host a second meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan in the capital of Qatar, Doha, on 18-19 February 2024. Unlike the last gathering in May 2023, the Emirate has also been invited, although it has not yet confirmed that it will

Obaidullah Baheer Lecturer of Transitional Justice at the American University in Afghanistan Al Jazeera Published On 17 Feb 2024 The Taliban does not want to share power with warlords and corrupt former officials and neither does the Afghan population On February 18, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will host a meeting of special envoys for Afghanistan

 BY: Kate Bateman;  Andrew Watkins Thursday, February 15, 2024 United Nations meeting of special envoys aims to seek a way out of humanitarian and human rights crises in a Taliban-led Afghanistan. On February 18-19, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene a meeting on Afghanistan in Doha to discuss the ongoing humanitarian and human rights crises

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 13 Feb 2024 Two more Afghan former inmates of the United States’ Guantanamo detention camp have finally returned home after more than two decades incarcerated or in exile. Abdul Zahir from Logar was detained by US forces and rendered to Guantanamo in July 2002, while Bostan Karim from Paktia was

Hujjatullah Zia A Kabul-based journalist Al Jazeera Published On 10 Feb 2024 Amid the hard times my country is going through, I have left behind despair and embraced hope. These days, Afghanistan makes international headlines more and more rarely and when it does, it is always about yet another tragedy. A humanitarian crisis, an earthquake,

AAN Team • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  4 Feb 2024 Afghans who got onto evacuation lists may have the chance to go to Europe or North America, if they can get passports and visas for Pakistan. Their first dilemma is whether to go; it is not easy leaving one’s homeland. But there is a second dilemma –

30 JANUARY 2024 International Crisis Group report The Taliban’s Neighbourhood: Regional Diplomacy with Afghanistan Even as many diplomats shun the Taliban regime, protesting its treatment of women and girls, emissaries of countries near Afghanistan have sought dealings with Kabul in areas like security and commerce. It is a worthwhile endeavour, and the West should not

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 25 Jan 2024 For a country where jobs are scarce and, for many, livelihoods unreliable, sending men from the family abroad to work is an option tried by many families. Remittances, the money those workers send home, are hugely important for the national economy, individual families and communities. In this

By Stephanie Sinclair The Washington Post January 15, 2024  Stephanie Sinclair, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, is the founder and president of Too Young To Wed. Their names are Khoshbakht, Saliha, Fawzia, Benazir, Farzana and Nazia — Afghan girls ages 8 to 10 who have been sold into marriage. Desperation forced their parents to thrust them

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 11 Jan 2024 2023 was a busy year for AAN, with just over 50 publications. They ranged from in-depth investigations into the economy, public finance and the aid industry to a poetic journey into the world of falconry. We introduced a new form of report – short, first-person accounts by

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Jan 2024 Nearly a million Afghans, many born and brought up in Pakistan, have ‘returned’ to their country since the start of Pakistan’s latest deportation campaign. On 3 October 2023, the government in Islamabad told undocumented Afghans living in the country to leave voluntarily by the end of

By Kathy Gannon Ms. Gannon is a Canadian journalist who covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for 34 years for The Associated Press. The New York Times 4 January 2024 It’s striking how much Afghanistan, which has the unfortunate legacy of being the site of America’s longest war, has all but disappeared from public discussion in the

AAN Team • AAN Guests Afghanistan Analysts Network  2 Jan 2024   We thought we would start the new year by asking AAN writers and friends to recommend books about Afghanistan. The books they reviewed were diverse – fact and fiction, classics and newly-published and written in English, Pashto and German. Two were books that the reviewers

Maryam Ahmadi A pseudonym for an Afghan peace and women’s activist Al Jazeera Published On 1 Jan 2024 The biggest challenge of teaching girls and women in Afghanistan is not the security risk or the bad internet connection, but the creeping hopelessness. I have sent the link and I am waiting for my students to

AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network 31 Dec 2024 The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution on the Independent Assessment on Afghanistan, which former Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Feridun Sinirlioğlu had put together. UNSC Resolution 2721 only passed after a month and a half of Security Council meetings, mainly held behind closed doors,

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Dec 2023 The cold weather marks the start of the hunting season in many countries across the world. In Afghanistan, despite a hunting ban, this time of year sees the resumption of particular hunting-related activities. One particular group of hunters – raptor birds migrating through the country – become

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 25 Dec 2023 Unbeknownst to many, Afghanistan has a rich historical heritage related to falconry. Photographs dating from the 1950s to the 1970s offer a relatively recent glimpse of Afghan falconers with their birds. However, those ancient traditions of Afghans practising falconry – embodied in literary works such as the

BY MALALAI HABIBI OPINION CONTRIBUTOR The Hill 12/19/23 8:30 AM ET In the shadows of the oppressive and misogynistic Taliban regime, Afghan women find themselves navigating a perilous journey where their rights are systematically erased. Yet amid this darkness, a formidable spirit of resistance, agency, and activism by Afghan women has emerged, becoming an example of

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Dec 2023 When the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) retook power, it started reclaiming state land that had been seized during previous administrations. In October 2022, the IEA established the Land-Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission, within the Ministry of Justice, whose purpose is to investigate land-grabbing under the

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 8 Dec 2023 The last Afghan still held in Guantanamo, Muhammad Rahim from Nangrahar province, has failed in his latest attempt to persuade the United States authorities to release him. The US continues to assert that he was a translator, courier and facilitator for al-Qaeda leaders and even though it

Belquis Ahmadi United States Institute of Peace Thursday, December 7, 2023 As the world commemorates 16 Days of Activism to end gender-based violence, Afghans discuss their experiences under the Taliban. Right now, women and feminist organizations around the world are commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with the 16 Days of Activism campaign. Starting

Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Dec 2023  While the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) maintains that it deserves full-scale recognition, it has not been given the country’s seat at the United Nations. In early December 2023, the UN General Assembly will again consider whether or not to allow the Islamic Emirate to take Afghanistan’s

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 24 Nov 2023 After the Islamic Emirate banned older girls from education, many girls found alternative avenues to continue their studies, find intellectual stimulation – and even, as this Daily Hustle found out, make a living in the private education sector. AAN’s Rohullah Sorush hears from one young Afghan

Mhd Assem Mayar • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  20 Nov 2023   Afghanistan and Iran have been at loggerheads for much of this year over the Helmand River and its water. As the region grappled with a punishing drought for the third year running, the two neighbouring countries have been locked in a tense melee over

BY: Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, November 16, 2023 Tensions over anti-Pakistan TTP terrorist group, expulsion of Afghan refugees will have implications for U.S. interests. On November 8, in an unprecedented press conference, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar offered a blistering critique of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He announced that

 BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  William Byrd, Ph.D.;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Friday, November 17, 2023 Despite some signs of stabilization, Afghanistan now faces renewed crisis as humanitarian aid dries up. More than two years into Taliban rule, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with some of the highest humanitarian needs.

Kate Clark • Jelena Bjelica Afghanistan Analysts Network  15 Nov 2023  Two new reports, one from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and another by David Mansfield and Alcis, show that Afghan farmers have largely complied with the Islamic Emirate’s ban on opium cultivation. They chart a swingeing cut in cultivation in 2023 – just

The Guardian Editorial Mon 6 Nov 2023 The deportation campaign by Islamabad is cruel. Other countries have let down these refugees too Human Rights Watch reports that refugees are now facing detentions, beatings and extortion by police. Others have been evicted by landlords or fired from jobs. The result is that Afghans believe they have no choice

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 10 Nov 2023 The earth has continued to shudder in Herat province ever since the first of a series of deadly earthquakes hit the province on Saturday 7 October around 11am local time. They have destroyed entire villages and killed and injured thousands of people. Since then, dozens more tremors,

Annie Pforzheimer World Politics Review Nov 6, 2023 Joe Biden has quietly begun to soften Washington’s stance on the Taliban as a sponsor of terrorism, despite an authoritative report by United Nations experts in June 2023 noting the “strong and symbiotic” links between the Taliban, the Haqqani network, al-Qaida and other terror groups. Ongoing U.S. consultation

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Nov 2023  This paper is an attempt to give an overview of the Afghan economy in light of two new World Bank reports, one on the economy, two years on from the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), and a second on the welfare of households. The

Analysis by Ishaan Tharoor Columnist The Washington Post November 6, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. EST As global attention centered on Gaza and the compounding upheavals and traumas triggered by Israel’s war on Hamas, another population is in crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees are being forced to leave Pakistan as the country implements an order

The Guardian Editorial 6 Nov 2023 The deportation campaign by Islamabad is cruel. Other countries have let down these refugees too Human Rights Watch reports that refugees are now facing detentions, beatings and extortion by police. Others have been evicted by landlords or fired from jobs. The result is that Afghans believe they have no choice but

Michael KugelmanForeign Policy NOVEMBER 1, 2023, 8:20 PM Islamabad’s policy of deporting all undocumented foreigners will have widespread repercussions. On Wednesday, Pakistan began the process of expelling all undocumented foreigners, including 1.7 million Afghans—one of the country’s largest immigrant communities. Officials say the policy, which was first announced last month, will be implemented in phases, with migrants and refugees temporarily placed

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 30 Oct 2023  Andar district in Ghazni province was a battleground for most of the years of the Islamic Republic, from 2003 up until its fall in 2021. The conflict caused not only loss of life, but also severe damage and disruption to business. Andar’s economy is once again fully

Kate Bateman United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, October 25, 2023 For the United States, greater engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto authorities is the least bad policy option. Since the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the United States has found itself in a vexing dilemma — wanting to condemn and hold accountable

Obaidullah Baheer Al Jazeera Published On 24 Oct 2023 Ordinary Afghans are not responsible for the perceived faults of a government they did not elect. On October 3, Pakistan’s interim government announced it was giving “illegal immigrants” 28 days to leave the country. Those who do not do so would be forcefully deported starting on November 1.

Sayed Asadullah Sadat Afghanistan Analysts Network 16 Oct 2023 How to support your family when you have just lost your job during hard economic times? That was the question one journalist asked himself after his newspaper laid him off during the calamitous contraction of the economy in 2021 when the amount of international money coming

Naweed Samadi Tolo News 8 Oct 2023 The 20-year presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan ended on August 31, 2021, with the withdrawal of the last US soldier in Afghanistan. 22 years ago, an international coalition led by Washington on October 7, 2001, attacked Afghanistan. America stated that the aim of the attack was to

Kate Bateman United States Institute of Peace October 4, 2023 Over the course of 20 years, the United States made strategic mistakes in its war with the Taliban that helped fuel the insurgency and likely precluded an earlier end to the war. The U.S. government became fixated on a purely military solution, to the neglect of a political

By: Kohistani By Hasht-E Subh  Oct 1, 2023 In the current period, Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), finds himself residing in France. During his stay, he has engaged with numerous leaders from French political parties and the Afghan community living in the country. He also took part in

Hujjatullah Zia A Kabul-based journalist Al Jazeera Published On 7 Oct 20237 Oct 2023 Climate change is bringing about more devastation, forcing more Afghans to flee. Deportations from neighbouring countries will not stop them. This summer, I visited my village in Jaghori district in Ghazni province for the first time since 2017. I had never

Ashley Jackson Afghanistan Analysts Network 1 Oct 2023 Diversion of aid in Afghanistan is in the news again, this time with allegations by the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John Sopko, that the Islamic Emirate or its officials are diverting humanitarian aid. Language in a draft US appropriations bill would prohibit

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 26 Sep 2023 The number of Afghan refugees moving along the Balkan Route has remained very high this summer. In particular, a great proportion in their earlier 20s and often under-age Afghans seem to be taking the long trip to central, western and northern Europe. From Turkey, they usually cross

By the Editorial Board The Washington Post September 5, 2023 Two years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has banned all women from visiting the country’s premier national park. “Going sightseeing is not a must for women,” the head of the ministry explained. Band-e-Amir, a UNESCO World

Abdullah Azzam Adviser to the government of Afghanistan Al Jazeera Published On 23 Sep 2023 Recently signed contracts will help the country tackle unemployment, underdevelopment and currency issues. Afghanistan is one of the world’s most resource-rich nations in the world, boasting over 1,200 mineral fields. According to estimates, its mineral wealth is worth $3 trillion

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network  20 Sep 2023 UNAMA has released its first report dedicated to the treatment of detainees since the Taleban takeover and alleges that the use of torture by the police and General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) is “systemic.” The report details methods of torture familiar to earlier generations of detainees –

Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network 16 Sep 2023  When the West withdrew from Afghanistan, many assumed its acquisitive neighbour, China, would reap the economic benefits of the change of government in Kabul. Afghanistan has immense, but largely untouched mineral and hydrocarbon wealth, including strategically valuable metals, such as lithium. That assumption was fed in the

 Belquis Ahmadi;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Thursday, September 14, 2023 Afghan women and girls deserve moral and material support to sustain their resiliency against the Taliban’s worsening repression. Two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the human rights situation in the country is abysmal, with women and girls experiencing the worst

 BY: Dayne Curry;  Becky Roby;  Ellen Bevier;  Anastasia Moran United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, September 19, 2023 Afghans need long-term sustainable solutions, which require increased humanitarian assistance, economic stability and resumed development aid. The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 immediately exacerbated the country’s precarious humanitarian situation, leaving millions in need of food assistance

By Franklin Foer The Atlantic October 2023 issue Joe Biden was determined to get out of Afghanistan—no matter the cost. August 1 August is the month when oppressive humidity causes the mass evacuation of official Washington. In 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki piled her family into the car for a week at the beach.

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  11 Sep 2023 The story of Afghan families is often one of loved ones separated by long distances and national borders. Every year, many Afghans who have family living in neighbouring countries make the hours and sometimes days-long journey overland from Afghanistan, braving long bus rides, hours waiting

ANATOL LIEVEN Responsible Statecraft Quincy Institute SEP 06, 2023 On the two-year anniversary of the Kabul withdrawal, if Washington forgets the war’s lessons, its mistakes are likely to be repeated. On the second anniversary of the final debacle of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, we should consider the lessons of that disaster for U.S. strategy elsewhere.

ADAM WEINSTEIN Responsible Statecraft Quincy Institute SEP 05, 2023 It was still shocking for many Americans to witness the swift collapse of a government that so many lives and tax dollars contributed to building. Today, Afghanistan is a nightmarish place for many Afghans, marked by a lack of rights and opportunities. It’s crucial to recognize

Xan Brooks The Guardian Fri 1 Sep 2023 Venice film festival: It’s no surprise that Ibrahim Nash’at’s documentary lacks in-depth interviews – his subjects barely tolerate his presence as he reveals the fighters’ lack of purpose after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan The spoils of war are a chore in this fascinating fly-on-the-wall study of the

By Steve Coll The New Yorker August 13, 2023 The Afghan statesman Zalmai Rassoul is recognized by the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland—but not by the Taliban. Photographs by Silvana Trevale for The New Yorker King Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan, who reigned after his country gained independence from Great Britain, in 1919, collected

Zahra Joya The Guardian Wed 6 Sept 2023 The Taliban have barred us from the workplace, cut our access to healthcare and closed schools to us. Must we struggle alone? We suddenly all woke in the middle of the night. A piercing cry came from the corner of our room. It was my teenage sister,

John Butt United States Institute of Peace 3 Sep 2023 In the second of our mini-series on Taleban publications, this report examines what may be the fullest and most authoritative account yet of what the Taleban believe an Islamic state should look like. In his book, ‘Al-Emarat al-Islamiya wa Nidhamuha’ (The Islamic Emirate and its System of

By Sola Mahfouz Ms. Mahfouz is an Afghan writer. The New York Times Aug 31, 2023 When the United States freed Afghanistan from the first Taliban government in 2001, everything in my homeland seemed to change overnight. My father, a businessman, retrieved his cherished television from its hiding place in our home in Kandahar, where

By KIERRA FRAZIER Politico 08/29/2023 12:27 PM EDT By the end of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, President Joe Biden was sure he made the right decision after watching the events unfold in the Situation Room. “Biden didn’t have time to voraciously consume the news, but he was well aware of the

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network  30 Aug 2023  August has already seen two days of national public holidays in Afghanistan and will see a third this week, celebrating the anniversary of the departure of the last United States troops on the 31st. That follows the celebration of Taleban forces’ entry into Kabul on 15 August

By Shabana Basij-Rasikh The Washington Post August 15, 2023  It’s the small things that find you, and they can come without warning. Not too long ago I was in Turkey, at the airport in Istanbul. My husband had gone to get us food, something to eat before our plane boarded. He brought it to where

By Catherine Rampell Columnist The Washington Post August 8, 2023 Mahnaz Akbari was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. The former commander of an Afghan military all-female special ops team, Akbari was among the 77,000 U.S. allies successfully evacuated to the United States when the Taliban retook her country. An additional 200,000 or

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network 17 Aug 2023  Since coming to power, the Taleban authorities have issued many edicts, decrees, declarations and directives limiting, restricting, suspending or banning basic freedoms for women and girls. Afghan women are no longer free to go to public parks, gyms and other public spaces and are banned from boarding planes

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network  13 Aug 2023 It is more than three years since the United States signed its peace deal with the Taleban and almost two since the last American soldier left Afghanistan. Yet the US still insists that the last Afghan it holds in relation to that war – at its prison

S Reza Kazemi Afghanistan Analysts Network 6 Aug 2023  Since the takeover around two years ago in August 2021, the Taleban have sought to overhaul and reinvent Afghanistan’s higher education. They have put their affiliates in charge at the ministry and many public universities, created new bodies to promote religious institutions and incorporate them into

 Barry Salaam United States Institute of Peace Thursday, August 10, 2023 Since regaining power two years ago, the Taliban have largely discarded Afghanistan’s democratic institutions but have taken a somewhat accommodating, albeit contradictory, approach toward independent media. Instead of banning independent media altogether, they have implemented regulatory restrictions and punitive measures to limit free speech

 BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, August 10, 2023 The opium ban, falling aid and regime actions against women will exacerbate poverty, worsen hunger and increase outmigration. The Taliban have done a better job than expected in managing the Afghan economy despite some missteps. But nevertheless, the Afghan economy seems caught in

BY: Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, August 15, 2023 Two years into Taliban rule, the question of whether Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for international terrorism remains alive. Longstanding fears were affirmed a little over a year ago, when the U.S. government located al-Qaeda leader Aimen al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan,

Nicola Gordon-Smith The Guardian Mon 14 Aug 2023 Western officials like me watched in despair two years ago on this day when the Taliban dramatically seized back control of Afghanistan, 20 years after the US-led invasion, toppling their regime in Kabul. The Afghan people, especially women and girls, faced the new and grim reality of their

Michael Levitt, Lee Hale, Sacha Pfeiffer Heard on All Things Considered National Public Radio July 31, 20234:44 PM ET NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer talks to security and counter-terrorism Asfandyar Mir about how instability in the Taliban’s Afghanistan has spilled into Pakistan, after a suicide bombing that killed dozens.   SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST: Funeral services were held today

Al Jazeera 2 August 2023 https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2023/8/1/will-talks-between-us-officials-and-taliban-leaders-bring-afghans-hope Parties hold first face-to-face discussions since group retook power in Afghanistan in 2021. High-level discussions between Taliban leaders and US officials have taken place in Doha. It’s the first time the two sides have met directly since the group retook control in Afghanistan two years ago, when NATO forces

Sabawoon Samim • Ashley Jackson Afghanistan Analysts Network  30 Jul 2023 Despite publicly claiming to welcome international aid, the Taleban government has exercised a growing influence over humanitarian operations within Afghanistan at both national and local levels. This includes bans on women working for NGOs and the United Nations and, more recently, an order to hand over

BY BILL ROGGIO Long War Journal July 21, 2023 The Taliban continues to claim that there are no foreign terror groups operating inside Afghanistan, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. The latest denial came this week when the Taliban was pressed about the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP), which shelters inside of Afghanistan

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  22 Jul 2023  After the Taleban came to power in August 2021, the flow of international funds into the country that helped prop up the economy declined precipitously, and a significant number of people lost their jobs. Women, facing new legal restrictions on work from the Islamic Emirate,

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Jul 2023 The decrees, edicts and instructions of Taleban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, from 2016, when he became leader, to May 2023, have been published. They make fascinating reading, tracing some of what the leadership felt was important to ban, make obligatory, organise or administer during the insurgency

 BY: Andrew Watkins United States Institute of Peace Thursday, July 13, 2023 In the nearly two years since the Taliban’s takeover, much of the Afghan population continues to struggle to meet basic daily needs amid a severe humanitarian crisis. The Taliban have imposed a raft of draconian restrictions on Afghan women and girls, effectively erasing them from public

Hujjatullah Zia A Kabul-based journalist Al Jazeera Published On 9 Jul 2023 My country, where the pursuit of knowledge was always venerated, is descending into darkness. It has been almost two years since the Taliban took over Kabul. I, like many Afghans who worked hard to attain a good education, am struggling. Knowledge seems to

Fabrizio Foschini • Rohullah Sorush United States Institute of Peace  7 Jul 2023 The time of the summer harvest has come, bringing with it some temporary relief to millions of Afghan households struggling to feed themselves. Standards of living, which had already worsened well before the Taleban takeover of August 2021, plunged further with their capture of

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 30 Jun 2023 The Taleban made their move against education for older girls about a month after they took over Afghanistan when they ordered secondary schools for boys to re-open, but made no mention of girls. Since then, there have been a few instances of false hope, notably in March

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts  Network 27 Jun 2023 UNAMA has published its first stand-alone report on conflict-related civilian casualties since the Taleban’s capture of power on 15 August 2021. Casualties have plummeted since the takeover, but the threat remains, especially to some communities, from suicide attacks and roadside and magnetic IEDs. UNAMA has also found

By Andrew J. Bacevich The New York Times June 18, 2023 BY ALL MEANS AVAILABLE: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy, by Michael G. Vickers Michael G. Vickers speaks with a member of the Yemeni special forces in Sana.Credit…via Michael G. Vickers An implicit question haunts this illuminating and richly detailed

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Jun 2023 Since they captured power in summer 2021, the Taleban have issued two strict bans on drugs. In April 2022, they banned the cultivation and production of opium and the use, trade and transport of all illegal narcotics. A year later, in March 2023, they issued another

Lynne O’Donnell By Lynne O’Donnell, a columnist at Foreign Policy and an Australian journalist and author. Foreign Policy 12 June 2023 Afghanistan’s top guns have no easy path to a new life. Pilots trained at great expense to the U.S. taxpayer to fly for the Afghan Air Force during the 20-year war against the Taliban, who could have

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Thursday, June 8, 2023 / The ban is not a counter-narcotics victory and will have negative economic and humanitarian consequences, potentially leading to a refugee crisis. The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product

BY: Abdul Sayed;  Tore Refslund Hamming United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, June 7, 2023 When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, counterterrorism experts were alarmed at the possible resurgence of Islamist terrorist groups within the country. This Special Report lays out why those concerns, particularly about the regional Islamic State affiliate known as

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  4 Jun 2023 The word most often used by Afghans to refer to widows is bisarparast (without someone to take care of you). In Afghanistan’s highly patriarchal society, where men are expected to be the breadwinners and opportunities for women to work are relatively few, being a widow is likely to be socially

Steve Coll Hassan Abbas’s book surveys the second Islamic Emirate’s ideology and leading personalities and probes its internal tensions. The New York Review of Books June 22, 2023 issue The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After the Americans Left by Hassan Abbas Yale University Press, 286 pp., $26.00 Nearly two years after the Taliban’s return

Sultan Barakat Al Jazeera Published On 30 May 2023 The appointment of a new prime minister in Kabul signals the Taliban’s openness to dialogue. Western leaders should not miss this chance. On May 18, the interim Taliban administration in Afghanistan announced that it has replaced caretaker Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund with his deputy, Maulvi Abdul Kabir.

Al Jazeera Published On 30 May 2023 The two countries call to de-escalate the situation after deadly clashes erupt apparently over river water-sharing dispute. Last week, deadly clashes broke out between Afghan and Iranian guards at their border raising fears of a new conflict. Both sides have accused each other of initiating the shooting in which at

Ehsan Qaane Afghanistan Analysts Network 26 May 2023 Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taleban have enacted successive laws and orders which apply to women and girls, but not to men and boys. Earlier this month, United Nations experts reported their assessment that these measures violated women and girls’ rights to education,

Simon Tisdall The Guardian Sun 21 May 2023 A new report puts the loss of life from Afghanistan to Yemen at 4.5 million – the bulk of them poor women and children who are victims of economic collapse and continuing trauma Abdoulaye is a lost child of the post-9/11 world – one among millions. Born

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, May 16, 2023 The Taliban’s missteps are harming their own interests but are even worse for Afghans. Here’s what the international community can do Over the past year, especially in recent months, the Taliban have made several missteps. The consequences are not a threat to

Sajjad Askary The Guardian Tue 16 May 2023 22.28 EDT Australia has become a beacon of hope, where we can rebuild our lives and make a new home Joy flooded my heart as I finally welcomed my mother, sister and niece in Melbourne last week after 13 years of family separation as a refugee in

By Rahmat Hashemi PRIO Posted May 16, 2023 In the past three years, the US government’s role in the Doha Talks (2010-2020) has attracted scrutiny and criticism within the United States and abroad. Zalmay Khalilzad (USA) and Taliban representative Abdul Ghani Baradar sign the agreement in Doha, Qatar in 2020. State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain Starting in November

 By Drew F. Lawrence Military.com 12 May 2023 The Islamic State’s Khorasan Province, also known as ISIS-K, has rapidly become the new boogeyman in the Middle East — specifically in Afghanistan, where the overall ISIS apparatus has spread its influence. The State Department has issued warnings about the group and has previously designated its leaders

 Kate Clark • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  10 May 2023   When our readers told us about some errors in our report: ‘What Do The Taleban Spend Afghanistan’s Money On? Government expenditure under the Islamic Emirate,” we started checking and cross-checking our sources and the report. We found that several budget lines in the operational budget

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 8 May 2023  A new United Nations report on capital and corporal punishment has detailed the widespread use of corporal punishment delivered ad hoc by non-judicial authorities, such as the police and ‘Vice and Virtue’ officials. It also documents a rise in corporal punishment ordered by judges since November 2022

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Kate Bateman;  Andrew Watkins;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Thursday, May 4, 2023 This week’s summit showed remarkable solidarity with beleaguered Afghans, but it remains to be seen if that can translate to meaningful change. Over a year and a half since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, not a single

Kate Clark • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 5 May 2023 The 1-2 May 2023 gathering in Doha, hosted by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, brought together the representatives of 21 countries – the five permanent members of the Security Council, major donors and regional players, plus the European Union and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. They

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network  30 Apr 2023 United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is due to host a two-day meeting on Afghanistan with foreign envoys, beginning tomorrow, 1 May 2023, in the capital of Qatar, Doha. The Taleban have not been invited. AAN understands from sources from invited countries that the idea for the meeting

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 24 Apr 2023  A year and a half after the Taleban takeover, music has completely disappeared from Afghan streets, TV channels, radios, cars and wedding halls. It barely survives in more personal and subdued forms and volumes – inside a house with tightly closed windows or shutters, inside headphones on

By Atal Ahmadzai Foreign Policy in Focus April 13, 2023 The Taliban contains many contending factions, but that’s also a source of its stability. Rumors about the internal division of the Taliban began soon after their return to power in 2021. Power struggles among the regime’s top-tier military and political leadership—confounded by personal ambitions as well as tribal

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 16 Apr 2023 Anyone who lived in Afghanistan during the first Islamic Emirate will find the current stand-off between the Taleban and NGOs – and now the United Nations – over the issue of women working familiar. There is the same clashing of principles: the Emirate’s position that women must

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Hodei Sultan United States Institute of Peace April 13, 2023 Over a year and a half after the Taliban barred girls from secondary education, ‘the sadness is overpowering,’ one female student told USIP. In March, 20 months after the Taliban banned Afghan girls from receiving secondary education, another school year began in

 BY: Andrew Watkins US Institute of Peace 11 April 2023 Since their takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have moved to restrict social freedoms, with a persistent focus on the rights of women and girls. Two edicts issued in December 2022, indefinitely banning Afghan women from attending universities and prohibiting working in NGO offices, constitute the

The Observer Editorial 9 April 2023 Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are still failing to take responsibility for abandoning the Afghan people to the Taliban The fall of Kabul in August 2021 and the accompanying chaotic evacuation of US and UK forces, foreign nationals and limited numbers of Afghan civilians marked the end of a

BY: Parviz Mullojanov United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, April 4, 2023 The peace process that ended the Tajik civil war in the late 1990s successfully combined both official and civic channels of communication and negotiation from its start. This report argues that although the agreement and its implementation were far from perfect, the Tajik

By William Byrd Lawfare Thursday, March 30, 2023 ICRC and Red Crescent personnel deliver humanitarian assistance in Faryab province, Afghanistan. (ICRC, https://tinyurl.com/2jx64e5t; CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic, https://tinyurl.com/353zpzek) International humanitarian aid is critical in responding to natural disasters and other short-term emergencies. But as the U.N. itself recognizes, such aid is not well positioned to

Sabawoon Samim  Afghanistan Analysts Network  25 Mar 2023 After the Taleban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the lives of millions of Afghans changed overnight. While these events have had a negative impact on the lives of many, some have seen positive changes. The end of the conflict meant that many urban dwellers who

By Shabana Basij-Rasikh Global Opinions contributing columnist The Washington Post March 23, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EDT I was standing in the arrivals hall at Kigali International Airport in Rwanda this month, waiting for an Afghan girl and thinking about the days that brought the two of us here. March 23rd marks one year since

S Reza Kazemi • Sayed Asadullah Sadat Afghanistan Analysts Network  21 Mar 2023  The second Nawruz, the first day of the spring and the new solar hejri year, after the Taleban’s return to power comes in an overwhelmingly frustrating atmosphere and appears even more lacklustre than the previous one. The Taleban have effectively banned it as a holiday

Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi Interim Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Al Jazeera Published On 23 Mar 2023 Afghanistan’s new leaders believe in dialogue and an exchange of ideas. But it takes two hands to clap. A year and a half after the developments of August 15, 2021, when the Islamic Emirate regained control of Afghanistan, the

Jelena Bjelica • Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 19 Mar 2023  Recent complex negotiations surrounding UNAMA’s mandate in Taleban-run Afghanistan have shone a light on longstanding divisions among UN Security Council members concerning key issues, such as human rights, women’s rights, peace and security and governance. This year, on 16 March 2023, member states agreed to resolve

Hujjatullah Zia A Kabul-based journalist Al Jazeera 19 Mar 2023 Under the Taliban regime, Afghan women are facing growing hostility and restrictions, but they continue to resist. Over the past few weeks, there has been a vivid debate among Afghans on which prominent individual from among our women compatriots deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Some

Charli Carpenter World Politics Review Mar 14, 2023 Last week, International Women’s Day drew renewed media attention to the situation in Afghanistan, now characterized by the United Nations as the most repressive country on earth for women. Over the past 18 months since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, conditions for women in the country have continuously deteriorated. Despite early promises

By Xanthe Scharff CEO and co-founder of The Fuller Project. Foreign Policy MARCH 8, 2023, 8:04 AM The deteriorating status of women under Taliban rule is a strategic disaster for Washington. On Aug. 16, 2021, the day after Kabul fell to the Taliban and the United States began its hasty withdrawal, journalist Zahra Joya woke

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 6 Mar 2023 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has said the Islamic Emirate is increasingly flouting “fundamental freedoms, including the rights of peaceful assembly and association, expression and the rights to life and protection against ill-treatment” and is “ruling Afghanistan

Murtaza Hussain The Intercept March 1 2023, 11:07 a.m. Echoing America’s failure in Vietnam, a new inspector general report found the U.S. built an Afghan army dependent on outside support. WHEN THE AFGHAN military and government collapsed in the summer of 2021, it was the worst failure of the U.S. defense establishment since the fall of Saigon.

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Feb 2023  Winters in Kabul are always difficult, and this year was no exception – with temperatures dropping well below zero and heavy snowfall. The snow turns the unpaved secondary roads where most Kabulis live into rivers of mud, making it difficult for people to get around. But if

By Ruchi Kumar Al Jazeera Published On 26 Feb 2023 Listen to this story: Kabul, Afghanistan – One morning in early October last year, 16-year-old cousins Marzia and Hajar Mohammadi were laid to rest next to one another in a remote graveyard on the outskirts of Kabul. Among the roses on the girls’ graves, their grieving

TOLOnews TV Network 24 Feb 2023 The Islamic Emirate’s Spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, called aid by the international community a right of the people of Afghanistan. Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that they “cannot abandon the Afghan women to be punished twice,” both by the

Shadi Khan Saif The Guardian Mon 20 Feb 2023 We must make humanitarianism a global agenda, just like climate change, press freedom and gender equality After the dreadful earthquakes in Syria and Turkey – the latter of which is now grappling with two more powerful shocks – the global humanitarian ecosystem seems to have once again failed

BY: Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D.;  Tamanna Salikuddin;  Andrew Watkins United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, February 14, 2023 Amid Pakistan’s economic crisis and the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban have reemerged as an increasingly potent threat. The Pakistani Taliban’s late January attack in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, claimed the lives

Gordon Brown Gordon Brown is chairman of the UN’s Education Cannot Wait fund and was UK prime minister between 2007 and 2010 The Guardian 12 Feb 2023 As a child, Ramzan’s fight for an education almost cost her her life. Worldwide, there are 222 million children out of school who urgently need our help Shazia

Ali Yawar Adili Afghanistan Analysts Network 9 Feb 2023   Since the Taleban’s return to power, an array of Hazara and Shia Muslim groups and individuals have tried to position themselves vis-à-vis the new order in an effort to protect a community that feels particularly vulnerable. The struggle over who gets to speak for the

Nitya Rao Professor of Gender & Development, University of East Anglia The Conversation February 3, 2023 Jamila*, a widow living in Herat, lost her husband in a suicide attack about eight years ago. She has an 18-year-old daughter who is blind and a 20-year-old son who lost both legs in a mine blast. Jamila used

By Edward Girardet Global Geneva 27 January 2023 UN Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths meets with Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. (Photo: UN) UPDATE: At a UN press conference in New York on Monday 30 January 2023, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stated that they were hopeful the Taliban would rescind at least some of their constraints,

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 2 Feb 2023   A large number of Taleban fighters have moved to Afghanistan’s cities since the movement’s capture of power, many of them seeing life in the city for the first time in their lifetime. These fighters, many of whom are from villages, had lived modest lives, entirely focused

By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall The Washington Post January 30, 2023 For much of the past year, the West’s policymakers and analysts were possessed by one haunting question: How bad will Europe’s winter be? Energy prices on the continent surged because of the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia’s energy industry. The prospect of

William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, January 25, 2023 Recent decrees by the Taliban barring Afghan women from attending university or working in NGOs are severely damaging the country both socially and economically, especially coming atop a ban on girls’ secondary education last year. The marginalization of half the population also highlights the “humanitarian dilemma” that aid

By Richard Fontaine, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, and Lisa Curtis, the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Foreign Policy magazine January 31, 2023, 9:33 AM The Taliban’s rule isn’t inevitable or forever. Eighteen months after the fall of Kabul, the

William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, January 25, 2023 Recent decrees by the Taliban barring Afghan women from attending university or working in NGOs are severely damaging the country both socially and economically, especially coming atop a ban on girls’ secondary education last year. The marginalization of half the population also highlights the “humanitarian dilemma” that aid

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network  26 Jan 2023   Afghan women who were studying at university or working for NGOs have now had a few weeks to take in the implications of two decrees issued by Taleban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada which denied them a university education and banned them from working for NGOs. The announcements

By Thomas Kasza The New York Times 25 Jan 2023 Mr. Kasza served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am an American Special Forces soldier, a volunteer knowing well the hazards of this profession in which I’ve served quietly for 14 years. And I helped build Vladimir Putin’s foreign legion. Green Berets — the “Horse Soldiers”

By Fawzia Koofi Ms. Koofi is the former deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament. The New York Times 20 Jan 2023 I was a first-year medical student at Kabul University when, on Sept. 26, 1996, Taliban fighters swept in and seized the capital. It was a Thursday. I remember that clearly because I was rushing

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Kate Bateman;  Andrew Watkins;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Thursday, January 12, 2023 The audacity of the Taliban’s latest bans on women in public life brings two new factors into play, which may over time lead to change. The Taliban marked the New Year by doubling down on their severe, ever-growing

By Claudia Dreifus The New York Times Jan. 14, 2023 This article is part of our special report on the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, says the global refugee crisis “is manageable, not insoluble.” Humanitarian crises — especially the plight of refugees — around the world

Anatol Lieven Responsible Statecraft DECEMBER 27, 2022 Both have intractable governing problems, but that doesn’t mean the West should keep intervening to save them. Recent months have seen escalating clashes along Pakistan’s disputed border with Afghanistan. In the latest, on December 11 and 15, civilians on both sides were killed when Taliban forces fired into Pakistan

Jamil Jan Kochai The New York Times 8 Jan 2023 Last September, 13 months after the Taliban takeover, my family and I flew into Kabul one morning as many of our relatives were on the cusp of fleeing the city. We hoped to see them before they parted. My uncle Fawad and cousin Hashmat picked

Murtaza Hussain The InterceptJanuary 1 2023 IN THE EARLY days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, alleviating the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban was a major part of the campaign to sell the conflict to the American public — and eventually to justify an open-ended military occupation. Whether the United States did much to

The Guardian Editorial 2 Jan 2023 Families are in desperate straits, the security situation is worsening – but the Taliban’s priority is punishing half the population The Taliban’s relentless campaign against women is not only a matter of rights, but of survival. It is not only cruel and oppressive, but deadly. In a country already

Roxanna Shapour • Rama Mirzada Afghanistan Analysts Network  28 Dec 2022 Sixteen months since its takeover of Afghanistan, the Emirate has imposed sweeping new restrictions on women’s lives, kicking female students out of universities and education centres, and banning women from working for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The bans have come on top of the continuing closure of

Sultan Barakat Al Jazeera 28 December 2022 The Taliban’s anti-education edicts stand against the very foundations of Islam and will harm Afghan society as a whole. The recent edict to ban women from higher education in Afghanistan is not only a blow to those directly affected but to all of Afghan society because it further

By Shabana Basij-Rasikh Global Opinions contributing columnist The Washington Post December 22, 2022  In the autumn of 2020, during the pandemic’s bleakest days, one of my students at the School of Leadership, Afghanistan drew a picture. It depicts a tent in a field ringed by mountains. The tent is blue fabric, staked to the ground at its

Gordon Brown The Guardian 22 Dec 2022 In Afghanistan, girls may be banned from primary school. Other Muslim nations hold the key to upholding their rights Afghan girls at a private institute in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 9 November 2022. Photograph: EPA This week, the Taliban made a bombshell announcement that they will ban women from attending university

Fabrizio Foschini Afghanistan Analysts Network 22 Dec 2022 A series of clashes between local villagers and incoming Pashtun groups in the northern province of Takhar brought the issue of conflict over land back into the spotlight. This is an age-long problem, but the collapse of the Republic shifted local power balances and brought different communities

by Trudy Rubin | Columnist The Philadelphia Inquirer Dec 14, 2022 Failure by Republicans and Democrats to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act this year means that Afghans admitted here after Kabul fell will lose their temporary U.S. parole status next year. Before the United States made its chaotic exit from Afghanistan in August 2021, Congress

FARAH STOCKMAN The New York Times 17 December 2022 Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board who reported from Afghanistan in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2011. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August of 2021 left a consolation prize for the Afghans who stood by the United States for 20 years:

By Hamid Mir Global Opinions contributing columnist The Washington Post December 15, 2022 On Dec. 11, Taliban government forces in Afghanistan shelled a town just across the border in Pakistan, killing seven Pakistani civilians. Pakistan responded in kind, killing one Taliban fighter and injuring 10 Afghans. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the “unprovoked shelling” by Afghan forces. On

Timor Sharan Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Dec 2022 On 15 August 2021, the Afghan government and large parts of the state, primarily the army and police, came tumbling down like a house of cards, leaving serious questions about the sudden melting away of Afghanistan’s security forces. Many factors contributed to the collapse of the security

Belquis Ahmadi;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace Thursday, December 8, 2022 Since the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan, they have ratcheted up restrictions on women and girls as the group consolidates power. These restrictions include limitations on employment, education, public interactions and other fundamental rights such as access to justice. These restrictions

Francesc Vendrell, then UN special envoy to Afghanistan Jonathan Steele The Guardian Mon 5 Dec 2022 Effective United Nations peace negotiator who brought about dialogue between warring parties in many international crises Francesc Vendrell, who has died aged 82, was one of the longest serving and most successful United Nations peace negotiators of modern times.

Charli Carpenter World Politics Review Dec 6, 2022 A Taliban fighter stands guard as people receive food rations distributed by a Chinese humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 30, 2022 (AP photo by Ebrahim Noroozi). Just as Americans began to gather for Thanksgiving dinner two weeks ago, the BBC reported that families in Afghanistan are selling

Roxanna Shapour • Rama Mirzada  Afghanistan Analysts Network 2 Dec 2022 In the wake of the Taleban takeover in August 2021, the Afghan banking system, which up to then had been linked to the global banking network, collapsed. Reportedly very little money had been left in the treasury, and then overnight, the United States stopped flying in

By Elliot Ackerman The Atantic NOVEMBER 28, 2022 Without congressional action, the tens of thousands of Afghans we evacuated to the United States may be deported in the coming year. The night before the midterm elections, Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, addressed a packed room in the basement of the Council on Foreign Relations

by An Afghan peacebuilder Peace Policy Universirty of Notre Dame, Kroc Intitute Nov 17, 2022 Photo: TEU/ECHO Pierre Prakash (Flickr) When the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban asserted that the war was over and that they now had control of the entire country. But just a year into Taliban control, an armed

by A Senior Human Rights Defender from the Shia Community Peace Policy University of Notre Dame, Kroc Institute Nov 17, 2022 Photo: iStock (used with permission) Minority ethnic and religious groups and women in Afghanistan have led the movement for democracy and human rights. Discrimination and violence against these groups in Afghanistan are not new. But

Aref Dostyar Peace Process University of Notre Dame, Kroc Institute Nov 17, 2022 Several armed opposition groups launched attacks against the Taliban in multiple provinces over the last year. While these groups may be in their initial stages of formation, the number of casualties they have inflicted on the Taliban is enough to meet the definition of an active conflict according to Uppsala

Nilofar Sakhi Peace Policy University of Notre Dame, Kroc Institute Nov 17, 2022 Photo: iStock (used with permission) The withdrawal of US troops and immediate takeover by the Taliban in August 2021 marked a radical transition from Afghanistan’s status as a republic to an Islamic Emirate system. With this transition, the Taliban maintains the perception

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, November 30, 2022 Newly released household data paint a bleak picture of the ongoing human tragedy in Afghanistan and how the Afghan people are adapting as best they can to economic decline and draconian social restrictions, while perhaps benefiting from better security. The second round of

Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network  28 Nov 2022 An outspoken diplomat who cared about people, principles and peace. The Afghanistan Analysts Network mourns for the chair of our Advisory Board, Ambassador Francesc Vendrell, who died on the morning of 27 November 2022 in London of severe illness, aged 82. Francesc was a passionate diplomat, a

Roxanna Shapour • Rama Mirzada Afghanistan Analysts Network 22 Nov 2022  Fifteen months after the Taleban returned to power, Afghan women have seen their country and their lives dramatically alter, as jobs evaporated, restrictions were announced and families sank into poverty. To better understand how these changes affect the day-to-day lives of women and which changes are

David Smith in Washington The Guardian Thu 17 Nov 2022 Acclaimed documentarian Matthew Heineman talks about his often devastating account of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan ‘They didn’t leave winning. They left losing. No matter what your belief sets are, we lost the war’ … a still from Retrograde. Photograph: Film PR handout Wearing a dark

Nadia Ahmad Law professor based in Orlando, Florida Luke Danielson President and co-founder of Sustainable Development Strategies Group Al Jazeera OPINION Published On 17 Nov 2022 Afghanistan’s copper deposits can alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people and help the world’s green transition. Since it assumed power in Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban has

MICAELA BURROW REPORTER Daily Caller News Foundation Quincy Institute November 12, 20223:23 PM ET The Biden administration is stonewalling the independent Afghanistan watchdog organization authorized by Congress in 2008, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Executive agencies argued that their efforts fall outside of SIGAR’s mandate, but experts disagreed, saying the organization is vital

By Devika Girish The New York Times Nov. 16, 2022 In Her Hands Directed by Tamana Ayazi, Marcel Mettelsiefen Hillary and Chelsea Clinton executive produced this documentary, which follows a young Afghan mayor as she navigates upheavals wrought by the Taliban’s return to power. Zarifa Ghafari as seen in the documentary “In Her Hands.”Credit…Netflix Tamana Ayazi and

By Lynne O’DonnelForeign Policy November 2, 2022 More drugs and higher prices a year after the Taliban takeover. The Taliban that took over Afghanistan after a 20-year war largely funded by heroin trafficking have, after pretending to ban drugs, instead turbocharged the cultivation and sale of narcotics a year after their takeover. While the United

By Laurel Miller Foreign Affairs November/December 2022 Issue Book Review The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan By Elliot Ackerman Penguin Press, 2022, 288 pp. America’s Blind Spots in Afghanistan In August 2021, Afghanistan was thrust back into the headlines. Taliban forces rapidly closed in on Kabul, and the United States began making its final military

Ehsan Qaane  Afghanistan Analysts Network  11 Nov 2022   The judges of the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber II have ruled that the investigation into war crimes related to the conflict in Afghanistan – which was stalled for two and a half years – can be resumed. However, the authorisation relates to “all alleged crimes and

Shadi Khan Saif The Guardian 10 Nov 2022 I will never forget seeing our world-class players on the international stage after all Afghanistan has been through Mohammad Nabi of Afghanistan takes photos with fans at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Photograph: James Ross Sitting inside the magnificent arena, I felt every moment of the experience. The joy

Opinion by Fawzia Koofi Opinion contributor  The Hill 9 Nov 2022 I was recently jolted awake at 3 a.m. by a call. As I answered the phone, at first all I could hear was girls screaming in terror and sharp banging on a metal door. Seconds that felt like hours passed before I heard the

BY: Kate Bateman United States Institute of Peace Thursday, November 3, 2022 By the time the United States started pushing for a political settlement, it was too late. Washington can draw lessons from that experience. The American war in Afghanistan incurred staggering costs — for the United States, Afghans and others — over two decades. The

OPINION  By Arthur Herman | Fox News Published November 8, 2022  Historians will pinpoint Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as the moment when Americans began to lose trust in their president When historians look back at the pivot point for the Biden presidency—and what originally set up the coming expected Democrat meltdown in Tuesday’s midterms—they will point to Afghanistan,

Patricia Gossman Associate Asia Director Human Rights Watch November 7, 2022 Yama Siawash, Other Attack Victims, Their Families Deserve Answers, Accountability Two years ago today, former Tolo News TV presenter Yama Siawash was killed in a car bombing on November 7, 2020, moments after he climbed into a government-owned vehicle in Kabul. Despite the high-profile

by Masom Jan Masomy National Interest November 6, 2022 Despite the supply and delivery of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, the people continue to experience acute food insecurity and economic tensions. In its recent report, the World Bank has estimated that Afghanistan’s economy ‘faces critical challenges’ in which the country’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to contract

Afghanistan: The Next Chapter Cornerstone Forum Series RFI/Religious Freedom Institute November, 2022 More than one year after the Taliban’s nearly unimpeded takeover of Afghanistan, religious freedom and associated rights in the country are spiraling towards an all-time low. The modest gains in these freedoms made over the past two decades risk complete erasure. The withdrawal

SIGAR Quarterly Report to Congress October 30, 2022 https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2022-10-30qr.pdf

By William Byrd Lawfare Blog Monday, October 24, 2022, 8:31 AM Ever since the August 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, there has been widespread, almost universal, rhetoric in international diplomatic circles—ranging from the United Nations to the European Union and the United States to Russia—that the Taliban need to form a more inclusive government, with varying definitions and views on what

Ashish Kumar Sen United States Institute of Peace Thursday, October 27, 2022 A failure by the United States, successive Afghan governments and the Taliban to seize opportunities has put Afghanistan back at ‘square one.’ The United States, successive Afghan governments and the Taliban missed several opportunities to achieve peace over the past couple of decades.

 Belquis Ahmadi United States Institute of Peace Thursday, October 27, 2022 Officials, armed fighters widen ‘enforcement,’ beatings, puberty exams for schoolgirls. Afghanistan’s Taliban are escalating restrictions against women, sending armed men into girls’ classrooms and forcing staff to inspect girls’ bodies for signs of puberty to disqualify them from further schooling. Afghan women report Taliban

From: Al Jazeera World 26 October 2022 The Kabul Bank Crash The inside story of Kabul Bank and the nearly $1bn of money laundering and corruption that devastated Afghanistan. From its foundation in 2004 to its collapse six years later and subsequent attempts to recover its vast losses, this is the inside story of the rise

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon Afghanistan Analysts Network 20 Oct 2022 The collapse of the economy has led families across Afghanistan to make desperate decisions, including, for some, giving young daughters in marriage in exchange for a bride price. To gain more insight into this, AAN’s Ali Mohammad Sabawoon sought to interview fathers of young brides. He

By Ed Corcoran Foreign Policy in Focus October 18, 2022 Here’s how to promote projects inside Afghanistan that benefit and empower the people. The Taliban waged an impressive military campaign and removed the prior government in August 2021. They know how to fight, but they clearly do not know how to run a government. The new

Rama Mirzada AQfghanistan Analysts Network 15 Oct 2022   For many Afghans the first year of Taleban rule was marked by uncertainty and anxiety over the country’s sudden change in fortunes. Virtually every area of daily life, from banking and shopping to travelling around the country to marriage celebrations has been affected. We wanted to

Banafsha Binesh Tolo News 17 Oct 2022 According to Rubin, the Doha agreement does not specify that the US will recognize the Islamic Emirate. Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert with the Center on International Cooperation, said the US’s sending the deputy head of the CIA for talks with the Islamic Emirate indicates terrorism is a

By Bushra Seddique The Atlantic OCTOBER 9, 2022 The country is, once again, the worst place in the world to be a woman. Hajera gave birth to her daughter, Sarah, in Kabul two weeks after the Taliban took over Afghanistan last summer. Hajera is 35 and worked as a government economist. She and her husband already

Belquis Ahmadi;  Palwasha L. Kakar United States Institute of Peace Thursday, October 13, 2022 Afghan and Iranian women’s movements share a struggle, a language—and an opportunity. Iran’s women are seizing worldwide admiration with 26 days of courageous defiance against their authoritarian government’s violent confinement of females as second-class citizens who may not freely work, marry,

Stefano Pontecorvo Foreign Policy OCTOBER 2, 2022 NATO’s last man in Kabul helped facilitate the airlift and had a front-row seat to the Taliban takeover of the capital. At 6:21 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, NATO’s Afghan adventure formally ended. At that moment, the Italian C-130 on which I was flying as the last

By Lynne O’Donnell Foreign Policy SEPTEMBER 29, 2022, 2:44 PM But first they must present a united front to win the support they need to dislodge the Taliban. Afghanistan is now perhaps the most dangerous country in the world, controlled by Taliban terrorists who are sheltering dozens of anti-Western jihadi groups while torturing, raping, starving,

By Lynne O’Donnell Foreign Policy SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 The decision by the United States to release $3.5 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves has sparked fears that the money will hand a jackpot to the Taliban, which have presided over the country’s slide into dire economic crisis since they took over more than a year

Kate Clark  Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Sep 2022 On 15 August 2021, much in Afghanistan was overturned or radically altered. The insurgents became the rulers and the old elites fled. Afghanistan’s relationship with the rest of the world ruptured and the country became poorer overnight. It also went from being a state where the administration

Belquis Ahmadi;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace 29 September 2022 Protecting human rights in Afghanistan should be both a policy priority and a national security priority for the United States. Ahead of the U.N. General Assembly last week, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett released his first report grading the Taliban’s

William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace 28 September 2022 Money deployed by the Geneva-based foundation may help the country’s lagging economy but won’t reverse its earlier collapse. For almost seven months, Afghan central bank reserves frozen by the United States and set aside to somehow help the Afghan people, have sat, immobilized. Now

Cath Clarke The Guardian Mon 19 Sep 2022 This documentary following one boy’s life in Afghanistan feels like a brutal, desperately sad companion piece to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. Its co-directors, the British documentary-maker Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi, first started filming Mir Hussein aged seven in 2002, and they haven’t stopped. They have already made

By Steve Coll The New Yorker September 14, 2022 The Biden Administration has agreed to release $3.5 billion in frozen funds, but will they reach a desperate population? Embargoes imposed to coerce dictators also punish suffering populations. For years, lawyers, economists, and policy wonks have searched for technocratic solutions to this dilemma—for example, by designing

By Carter Malkasian Foreign Affairs September 13, 2022 The Forces That Could Threaten the Taliban’s Control One year ago, the democratic government of Afghanistan collapsed. The humiliating evacuation of U.S. military forces and civilians as well as roughly 100,000 Afghans remains a sore spot for Washington and its allies. The Taliban regime has ruled the

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network  10 Sep 2022 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan has released his first report to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The situation in the country has deteriorated, Richard Bennett said, “to the point where the human rights crisis matches Afghanistan’s humanitarian and financial

By Adam Smith Fox News August 26, 2022 President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both reached the same conclusion about U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan — it no longer made sense. Twenty years into our effort, it had become clear that no amount of money or U.S. and coalition troops could get the Afghan

By Shaharzad Akbar Foreign Affairs August 30, 2022 How the International Community Turned Its Back Life under the Taliban is the worst women’s rights crisis on the planet. When the Taliban returned to power last August, they imposed immediate and brutal restrictions, the harshest of which were reserved for women. They quickly imposed a ban on girls’ secondary education, which remains in

Lynne O’DonnellForeign Policy August 28, 2022 Two recent books chronicle how the United States turned its back on Afghanistan and pitched the country into chaos. The betrayal of Afghanistan by the United States was inked on Feb. 29, 2020, when an emissary of then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bilateral deal with the unreconstructed terrorist-led

Daniel L. Davis The National Interest August 18, 2022 We must resist the temptation to believe that if only the United States had done this or that differently, the war would have been won. Editor’s note: In August, The National Interest organized a symposium on Afghanistan one year after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

By Eliza Griswold The New Yorker August 30, 2022 A year after the last U.S. military flights left, some Afghans who are vulnerable to retribution from the Taliban are being resettled in the U.S. But others are stuck in third-party countries, and many remain trapped in Afghanistan, at great risk. Last month, Metra Mehran, an

BY: Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace 1 September 2022 A year after the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan’s neighbors are engaging pragmatically with the Taliban, but still wary of what’s next. One year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, its relations with its neighbors remain tepid as the region comes to grips with the

Ruchi Kumar The Guardian 31 August 2022 We are still trying to find ways to get visas – writing letters, appealing to governments – but the options are running out It was past midnight on 9 August 2021, and I was immersed in writing when my phone pinged: a message from a contact at the

BY: Steve Brooking United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, August 30, 2022 August 30, 2022, marks the one-year anniversary of the last US troops leaving Afghanistan. During America’s 20-year military intervention, there were several opportunities to negotiate peace among the Taliban, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and the United States—but these opportunities were

BY: Belquis Ahmadi;  Matthew Parkes United States Institute of Peace Thursday, August 25, 2022 The Taliban’s disturbing rollback of economic and educational opportunities show they haven’t changed since the 1990’s. Despite prior assurances that they had moderated their positions, the past year of Taliban rule has been marred by a disturbing rollback of women’s and girl’s

BY: Belquis Ahmadi United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, August 30, 2022 Podcast A year on, the situation in Afghanistan is “looking really grim” as women and girls have lost the gains made over the past two decades and the country’s humanitarian crisis continues to spiral, says USIP’s Belquis Ahmadi.  “The Taliban are trying to erase women

Daniel Davis 19fortyfive Published 29 August 2022 Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of America’s messy and chaotic withdrawal from the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Many observers are evaluating today whether President Joe Biden’s decision to end the war was the right one. While there is no question that America’s exit could have been handled better,

By Rozina Ali The New Yorker August 24, 2022 After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, a U.S. organization shut down the country’s largest network of women’s shelters. Its founders think that it made a huge mistake.  On the morning of August 15, 2021, Samira was lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep,

August 18, 2022 Aref Dostyar, Zmarai Farahi Middle East Institute After nearly two decades of U.S. presence, the Afghan conflict between the central government and the Taliban reached a deadly stalemate, taking a hundred lives a day from each side between 2018 and 2021. However sad, the international community viewed this impasse as a sign of

By Steve Coll The New Yorker August 27, 2022 For the Biden Administration, supporting the Afghan people without empowering the Taliban is the foreign-policy case study from hell. Public anniversaries mark the meaning of the past in the political present. In Washington, one year after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the failure of

Adam Weinstein QUINCY BRIEF NO. 29 Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft AUGUST 15, 2022 Executive Summary One year after the United States withdrew its military from Afghanistan, relations between the two countries are stuck in a holding pattern. The United States remains the single largest humanitarian donor to the people of Afghanistan, with over $774

Dhabie Brown;  Yasmin Faruki;  Ashley Igwe;  Allyson Neville;  Becky Roby United States Institute of Peace Wednesday, August 17, 2022 The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last year — followed by economic sanctions and other restrictions from the international community — precipitated a dire humanitarian crisis. Afghan women and children, particularly girls, have been hit the hardest.

Afghanistan Analysts Network AAN Team  12 Aug 2022  It is almost a year since the departure of the last foreign forces from Afghanistan, the collapse of the Republic and its armed forces and the Taleban’s capture of power. It is almost a year, as well, that the Taleban have been ruling Afghanistan. AAN has reported

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 21 Aug 2022 During their long and ultimately successful insurgency, the Taleban, like their foreign enemies, were faced with choices over battlefield tactics, between military effectiveness and trying to win over, or at least not alienate, local people. As insurgents, the Taleban were up against well-drilled foreign forces with advanced weaponry

by Vanda Felbab-Brown The National Interest August 15, 2022 Editor’s note: In August, The National Interest organized a symposium on Afghanistan one year after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover of Kabul. We asked a variety of experts the following question: How should the Biden administration approach Afghanistan and the Taliban government? The following article is one of

Samira Sayed-Rahman Al Jazeera Published On 17 Aug 2022 I worked for Afghanistan’s government. Now I recognise we, too, bear responsibility for the country’s struggles. On the morning of August 15, 2021, I boarded a 9am flight from Kabul to Istanbul, thinking I would be back at work in a few days’ time at the

By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall The Washington Post August 16, 2022 A year ago, the Taliban captured Kabul, capping the dramatic fall of Afghanistan’s fragile U.S.-backed government. America’s longest war ended in ignominy and tragedy. The Islamist militants that had been chased from power in 2001 were back in command and the legacy of two decades of U.S.-led state-building

Sultan Barakat Professor in Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an Honorary Professor of the University of York Al Jazeera Published On 15 Aug 2022 The Taliban’s first year back in power was one of crisis, but they also scored victories that deserve to be acknowledged. When asked in

By LARA SELIGMAN Politico 08/11/2022 04:30 AM EDT A Q&A with General Frank McKenzie, one year after his negotiations with the Taliban and the chaotic American withdrawal. General Frank McKenzie was on his way to negotiate with the Taliban when he got the call that Kabul had already fallen. It was Aug. 15, 2021, and

By Matthieu Aikins New York Times Magazine Aug. 14, 2022 After barring girls from high school — and harboring an Al-Qaeda leader — the regime now risks jeopardizing the billions of dollars of global aid that still keeps Afghans alive. Afghanistan’s ministry of education sits on a chaotic thoroughfare in downtown Kabul, not far from

Pamela Constable The Washington Post April 18, 2021 The flawed U.S. presence lifted expectations about what kind of society they could have. When I first heard this past week that President Biden had decided to send home the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan by Sept. 11, I felt the same chill of dread that many Afghans did.

Jon Allsop Columbia Journalism Review AUGUST 23, 2021 LAST SUNDAY, in the hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban, swathes of the mainstream US news media instantly savaged President Biden for losing Afghanistan. In the week since then, he has stayed under an intense spotlight. News organizations have disputed the accuracy of many of his claims about the situation on

TOLOnews TV Network 10 Aug 2022 Deputy spokesman for the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, rejected Petraeus’s remarks and called the Doha agreement effective. The former head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and former head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, said the deal signed between the Islamic Emirate and US “has

Michael Kugelman Al Jazeera Published On 5 Aug 2022 The drone attack that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has plunged the Taliban into an internal crisis. The group has been humiliated by a unilateral US military action and its relentless claims that it has denied space to “terrorists” have been exposed as lies. This imperils

 William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace Monday, August 8, 2022 Afghanistan’s economy was already deteriorating before the Taliban takeover of the country on August 15, 2021, suffering from severe drought, the COVID-19 pandemic, declining confidence in the previous government, falling international military spending as U.S. and other foreign troops left, human and capital

Kate Bateman;  Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D.;  Andrew Watkins United States Institute of Peace Tuesday, August 2, 2022 On Monday, President Biden revealed that a U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida leader, and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri over the weekend. Al-Zawahiri was reportedly on the balcony of a safe house in Kabul, Afghanistan. Last week,

By JONATHAN SCHRODEN Politico 08/02/2022 12:20 PM EDT The killing is a valuable, if troubling, datapoint about a volatile nation. The successful strike on Sunday against Ayman al-Zawahri —a man with no shortage of American blood on his hands — is a celebratory moment for President Joe Biden’s administration. For watchers of Afghanistan, it is

By Christina Goldbaum and Thomas Gibbons-Neff The New York Times Aug. 2, 2022 The group has promised moderation even while reinstituting its harsh rule of Afghanistan. Now, the revelation that the Taliban were sheltering Al Qaeda’s leader is likely to harden support for sanctions. Hours after an American drone strike killed the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman

By Peter Baker The New York Times Aug. 2, 2022 President Biden now confronts the question of what, if anything, he will do in response to the revelation that the Taliban were again sheltering a leader of Al Qaeda. WASHINGTON — The sunrise missile strike that shredded the leader of Al Qaeda on the balcony of a

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 2 Aug 2022   President Joe Biden has announced the killing of the leader of al-Qaeda, Aiman al-Zawahri, in a drone strike. Zawahri was central to the founding of al-Qaeda, the intellectual and organisational force behind the group, key to the decision to attack US targets in east Africa, the

By Shabana Basij-Rasikh The Washington Post August 1, 2022 In Afghanistan, women now talk about their futures in the past tense. I was on a Zoom call recently with two young university graduates in Kabul when I asked them about their plans. “I hoped to go …,” they answered. “I planned to do …” Sign

By JONATHAN SCHRODEN Politico          08/02/2022 12:20 PM EDT Dr. Jonathan Schroden directs the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia. The views expressed here are his and do not necessarily represent those of CNA, the Department of the

Anthony Navone United States Institute of Peace Monday, August 1, 2022 As Taliban reinstates repressive policies, a new initiative directly connects Afghan women and civil society to U.S. policymakers. When the Taliban returned to power last August, many wondered if the previous two decades of progress and change in Afghanistan would temper the group’s previously

Hameed Hakimi The Guardian 2 August 2022 The death of the al-Qaida leader points to a potential shift in the complex dynamic between the US, Pakistan and the Taliban A decade after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a special operation in Pakistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul. Both

Ehsan Qaane Afghanistan Analysts Network 28 Jul 2022 Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have still not made a decision to authorise, or not, the resumption of the court’s war crimes investigation in Afghanistan, ten months after the ICC Prosecutor urged them to expedite their approval. It means that, 16 years after the ICC began to

Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 20 Jul 2022   A look at UNAMA’s first major human rights report since the Taleban takeover UNAMA has published its first major report on human rights in Afghanistan since the Taleban came to power on 15 August 2021. It covers a multitude of issues, including detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings,

Human Rights Watch July 7, 2022 8:30AM EDT Over 100 Bodies Found Dumped in Canal in East (New York) – Taliban security forces have summarily executed and forcibly disappeared alleged members and supporters of an Islamic State offshoot in eastern Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, residents of Nangahar and

Hope and despair: Kathy Gannon on 35 years in Afghanistan By KATHY GANNON Associated Press July 3, 2022 FILE – In this Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011 file photo, Associated Press Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan Kathy Gannon sits with girls at a school in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A Kabul court announced Wednesday, July 23,

Roxanna Shapour Afghanistan Analysts Network 5 Jul 2022 It has been ten months since the Taleban took control of Afghanistan, setting off economic collapse on an unprecedented scale that has seen millions of Afghans fall into extreme poverty. While the Taleban continue to snub calls from Western capitals to respect human rights, including the rights

Mhd Assem Mayar Afghanistan Analysts Network 6 Jun 2022 The earth has only one atmosphere, and the effects of climate change transcend political boundaries. Afghanistan is one of the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases, but among the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change. The harm is already evident in the increased frequency of

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D. United States Institute of Peace June 23, 2022 The United States, NATO, national leaders and security forces failed in Afghanistan but not in Ukraine. The Taliban insurgency and U.S. troop withdrawal, and Russian incursions culminating in the February 24 invasion, constituted existential “stress tests” for Afghanistan and Ukraine, respectively. Ukraine and

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor The Guardian Wed 22 Jun 2022 12.45 EDT Analysis: humanitarian appeals for Taliban-ruled country have had poor responses and there are sanctions complications   As Afghanistan reels from a powerful earthquake and starts to bury its more than 1,000 dead, the Taliban leadership in Kabul have appealed to the international community to clear

BY ADNAN NASSER  Diplomatic Courier 17 June 2022. Despite the rapid fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, resistance to Taliban rule has continued. This has come from both armed and unarmed actors in the country writes Adnan Nasser. The Taliban have returned to power in Kabul. Following U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to end

Sabawoon Samim Afghanistan Analysts Network 15 Jun 2022 The Taleban’s ‘religious police’ are back in force, leaving many Afghans fearing a return to the notorious brutalities of the Taleban’s 1990s Amr bil-Maruf ministry. Yet, two decades on, argues guest author Sabawoon Samim* (with input from Roxanna Shapour), Taleban views on the promotion of virtue and

Belquis Ahmadi;  Lauren Baillie;  Scott Worden United States Institute of Peace 14 June 2022 The Taliban’s takeover has increased the risk of mass atrocities. Here’s how the United States can help prevent them. Following the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover, the risk of mass atrocities in Afghanistan has risen considerably, with multiple groups facing imminent threats

BY FORMER AMBASSADOR DAVID ROBINSON OPINION CONTRIBUTOR The Hill 06/17/22 The United States Air Force announced on Monday exonerated and returned to flight status the crew of a C-17 military plane after body parts had been found in its wheel well. The remains were likely Afghani, the awful result of the plane’s emergency departure from Kabul

From: The Bottom Line What are the prospects for Afghan-US relations? Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad has had a front-row seat to relations between Washington and Kabul for decades. Normal relations between Afghanistan and the United States are not on the horizon after 20 years of war. Host Steve Clemons speaks with Zalmay Khalilzad, who was

Mhd Assem Mayar Afghanistan Analysts Network 6 Jun 2022   The earth has only one atmosphere, and the effects of climate change transcend political boundaries. Afghanistan is one of the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases, but among the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change. The harm is already evident in the increased frequency

“We need to breathe too” Kate Clark • Sayeda Rahimi Afghanistan Analysts Network 1 Jun 2022   It has been three weeks since the Taleban announced a new order, prescribing a strict dress code for women, that they should not leave the house without real need and if they do, should wear what is termed ‘sharia hijab’,

Farshad Daryosh  Tolo News 2 June 2022 Afghan analysts suggest that commitments made by the Islamic Emirate in Doha during their talks with the United States need to be fulfilled. US-based research organization, RAND Corporation, has offered three options for Washington’s policy on Afghanistan, suggesting the United States should either come up with engagement, isolation,

By Peter Bergen CNN National Security Analyst May 27, 2022 (CNN) Whether it’s providing a safe haven for terrorist groups like al Qaeda or installing officials who face United Nations sanctions in cabinet positions, the Taliban is up to its old ways, according to a new report issued by the UN on Friday. While the report

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team Afghanistan Analysts Network 23 May 2022 A major focus of the international humanitarian response to Afghanistan’s economic collapse has been a ramped-up distribution of food aid, as large parts of the population no longer have the income to buy enough food for their families. In this fourth instalment of our economic

Belquis Ahmadi;  Mohammad Osman Tariq United States Institute of Peace Thursday, May 12, 2022 The worst-case scenario for Afghan women is playing out before our eyes. The international community cannot sit by idly. The Taliban continued this week to roll back Afghan women’s rights by decreeing women must be fully covered from head to toe

By Habib Khan Totakhil and Justine Fleischner The Diplomat May 11, 2022 New data on violent trends in Afghanistan shows a marked shift in terrorism and violence toward women, journalists, and educators under Taliban rule. Afghanistan may have fallen out of international headlines, but violent trends are once again on the rise. Our team at Afghan Peace Watch

International Rescue Committee Press Release Kabul, Afghanistan, May 12, 2022 — A new IRC report confirms that the economic crisis that has engulfed Afghanistan since August 2021 is now the primary driver of persistent food insecurity threatening the survival of nearly 20 million Afghans, who are experiencing extreme hunger in the face of continuing political uncertainty and economic calamity. Unemployment

By the Editorial Board The Washington Post 12 May 2022 Panicked Afghans by the thousands tried to escape their country as the United States evacuated last year. They feared that a victorious Taliban would offer no more respect for basic rights, especially those of women, than the movement did when it ruled Afghanistan between 1996

By the Editorial Board The Washington Post 29 April 2022 The Biden administration has established a sponsorship program to help admit and support tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, but too many Afghan evacuees, including some who helped U.S. troops and personnel, have been left without adequate support in this country or spurned altogether. For

Rohullah Sorush • Thomas Ruttig Afghanistan Analysts Network 20 Apr 2022 Another wave of Covid-19 struck Afghanistan early in 2022 with doctors throughout the country reporting a rise in cases from January onwards. The devastation suffered by the Afghan health system since the suspension of most foreign aid following the Taleban takeover left it wholly unprepared to

By Zane Zovak The Diplomat April 13, 2022 China’s willingness to partner with the Taliban undermines American efforts to influence the extremist group’s behavior through pressure campaigns and sanctions. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in Kabul, Mar. 24, 2022. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the

Jelena Bjelica • Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network 14 Apr 2022 Seven and a half months after they took power in Afghanistan, the Taleban have officially banned opium. Observers had been waiting to see if they would implement their promise to ban narcotics made shortly after they captured Kabul. The ban has come at the beginning of

Hujjatullah Zia A Kabul-based journalist Al Jazeera Published On 16 Apr 2022 Do not forget us. When the Taliban took over Kabul in August, like millions of other Afghans, it came as a shock to me. Within the first days of their rule, the office of Daily Outlook Afghanistan newspaper, where I worked as a

An Opinion Video investigation reveals the Taliban have been on a campaign of revenge killings against former U.S. allies. By Barbara Marcolini, Sanjar Sohail and Alexander Stockton Ms. Marcolini is an investigative journalist. Mr. Sohail is the founder of the Afghan newspaper Hasht e Subh Daily. Mr. Stockton is a producer with Opinion Video. Link to

Shikiba The Guardian 11 April 2022 The school I worked in has been forced to close. Our dreams are shattered and we urge you, people of the west, to help I am a woman living in Kabul and I am a teacher. Until eight months ago, I was one of the staff at The City

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Apr 2022   Farmers across Afghanistan have been hit hard by drought and fighting in recent years. In this report, we look at how this has affected agriculture in one province, Kandahar, famous for its fruit production. Much of the fruit crop is – or should be –

By Griff Witte Washington Post 2 April 2022 Moscow appears to have underestimated its adversary this time, just as it did then The Kremlin had banked on a quick, trouble-free decapitation to solve the problem of a neighbor appearing to stray too far from Moscow’s orbit. But after its vaunted army thundered across the border, very

Roxanna Shapour • Kate Clark Afghanistan Analysts Network  31 Mar 2022 The United Kingdom, Germany, Qatar and the United Nations are co-hosting a virtual, ministerial-level, international, pledging summit for Afghanistan, today. It aims to raise USD 4.4 billion for lifesaving humanitarian support to 22.1 million Afghans who are at “immediate and catastrophic levels of need.” Afghanistan’s Taleban

Ashley Jackson Afghanistan Analysts Network 29 Mar 2022 The Taleban’s abrupt decision to keep girls’ secondary schools closed, despite promising for months that they would re-open, has caused distress to girls, parents and teachers alike. The Taleban’s justification was confused, with various officials giving different reasons for the closure, from lack of teachers to inappropriate school

By Shabana Basij-Rasikh Global Opinions contributing columnist The Washington Post March 28, 2022 Sometimes 20 years can fall away like nothing. Sometimes time telescopes into a vivid memory of a flash of red above a sea of blue. On March 23, 2002, I was 12 years old, living in Kabul, walking into an all-girls public

 Theodoric Meyer and Jacqueline Alemany   with research by Tobi Raji The Washington Post 28 March 2022 Some lawmakers worry Afghan refugees will be forgotten as focus turns to Ukrainians The other refugee crisis: As President Biden moves to admit up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to the United States, lawmakers and advocates are urging him not to forget

By Elaine Little Military.com/The War Horse The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com.  24 March 2022 The women. We saw them but rarely engaged. With few exceptions, their burqas enveloped them from head to toe. I was familiar with middle eastern abayas. I knew some

Ayesha Jehangir The Guardian 18 March 2022 Afghans have been fighting since the 70s for the same reason Ukrainians are fighting but they have been neglected and betrayed It took the international community two long decades of sacrifices with blood and fortune to establish some sort of representative governance in Afghanistan, which the Taliban overthrew in

By Kern Hendricks International Politics and Society March 14, 2022 Consortium News Many of the most severe restrictions that people expected the Taliban to impose have not yet materialized, writes Kern Hendricks. When U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union Speech on  March 2, the eyes of the world were understandably locked on

Sahar Ghumkhor and Anila Daulatzai Al Jazeera Published On 14 Mar 202214 Mar 2022 Washington’s decision to give Afghan funds to 9/11 victims is a continuation of its colonial venture in Afghanistan. On February 11, US President Joe Biden announced the allocation of $3.5bn belonging to the Afghan people to cover lawsuits by 9/11 families.

Ehsan Qaane Afghanistan Analysts Network 7 Mar 2022  What has happened to the Afghan media? The Taleban takeover of Afghanistan delivered a devastating blow to one of the Republic’s few achievements – freedom of expression and a vibrant media sector. Since the fall of the Republic, nearly half of Afghanistan’s media outlets have closed and

Mohsin Amin Fulbright Scholar, Afghan Analyst and Researcher Al Jazeera Published On 4 Mar 2022 After the US’s catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, the programme should have been cherished, not abandoned. Many have been puzzled by the policy choices of the Biden administration vis-à-vis Afghanistan since the United States’ disastrous withdrawal from the country last August.

Adam Pain Afghanistan Analysts Network 21 Feb 2022  Yet again, Afghanistan is experiencing a moment of rupture, the latest in a long series of upheavals that have marked the lives of most Afghans over the age of 55. For those living in rural areas, unpredictability is created not only by regime change or violent conflict,

By Jon Lee Anderson The New Yorker February 28, 2022 issue They fought for decades to retake Afghanistan, but promises of a new start are already colliding with internal divisions and external opposition. Without foreign support, the Afghan economy is foundering. At a drug-rehab facility established on a former U.S. military base near Kabul, staff members

EZRA KLEIN Opinions The New york Times Feb. 20, 2022 Ninety-five percent of Afghans don’t have enough to eat. Nearly nine million are at risk of starvation. The U.N.’s emergency aid request, at more than $5 billion, is the largest it has ever made for a single country. “The current humanitarian crisis could kill far more

Moustafa Bayoumi The Guardian 16 Feb 2022 To take Afghan money to pay grieving Americans in order to punish the Taliban is nothing less than larceny as collective punishment Last week, the White House issued an executive order announcing the theft of some $7bn. Shocking, to be sure. But more shocking still was when that same

By Ryan C. Crocker and Philip M. Caruso Mr. Crocker is a former United States ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Caruso is the chairman of the nonprofit No One Left Behind. The New York Times Feb. 17, 2022 On Aug. 10, 2021, days before the collapse of Afghanistan’s government, Fawad Khan Safi arrived in the United States