Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan Please submit all media inquiries to media@crisisgroup.org or call +32 (0) 2 536 00 71 Crisis Group Role Borhan Osman is Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for Afghanistan. He is a leading expert on the militant networks operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and has researched the Afghan conflict since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Borhan has written extensively about the Taliban insurgency and militant groups in Afghanistan, including Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K). Areas of Expertise The conflict in Afghanistan Insurgency, terrorism and militant networks Peace dialogue and reconciliation Religious extremism and radicalisation Salafi-jihadism Professional Background Before joining Crisis Group, Borhan worked as a researcher/analyst for over five years at the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN). Before that, he worked with different national and international media organisations in Kabul. His research and reporting has mostly been based on fieldwork across Afghanistan. He holds an MA degree from the Freie Universität of Berlin on Islamic intellectual history. Languages Pashto (native) Dari (native) English (fluent) Arabic (fluent) Turkish (intermediate) Urdu (basic) French (basic) In The News 8 Feb 2018 The U.S. and Afghan governments are unleashing more violence based on the same rationale that it would tilt this stalemate to favor their conditions at the table. Reuters Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan 30 Jan 2018 Increasing pressure on [Kabul's] battlefield may lead [the Taliban and IS] to hit back in an area where they can publicly disprove the rhetoric of the U.S. military or Afghan government. AFP Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan 30 Jan 2018 [High-profile Taliban attacks in Kabul are] an attempt to disprove statements by U.S. and Afghan officials that the Taliban are weakened. NBC Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan 16 Jan 2018 U.S. strategy [in Afghanistan] is so military-centric. Even 100,000 troops couldn’t finish the Taliban, and ever since those days, they have been zealously confident. The Washington Post Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan 10 Jan 2018 It should not come as a surprise that some of the [Afghan] youth inculcated in the ideology of jihadism embrace the next version of jihadism, the most violent one. AFP Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan 28 Dec 2017 Most of those blowing themselves up [in Kabul] are the young Salafis who are indoctrinated into jihadism and find in Islamic State a cool political ideology seeking to dominate the world. The New York Times Borhan Osman Senior Analyst, Afghanistan Latest Updates Op-Ed / Asia 19 March 2018 The U.S. Needs to Talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan Originally published in The New York Times Commentary / Asia 7 February 2018 The Cost of Escalating Violence in Afghanistan Taliban attacks in Kabul in late January 2017 are part of an escalation in violence in Afghanistan, where the civilian population is bearing the brunt of a particularly intense winter of fighting. Commentary / Asia 11 December 2017 U.S. Bombing of Afghan Drug Labs Won't Crush the Taliban U.S. aerial bombing of drug laboratories in Afghanistan will solve neither the country’s Taliban insurgency nor its drugs problem.