Kate Clark has worked as Senior Analyst for the Afghanistan Analysts Network since May 2010 and is AAN’s Country Director since 2014.

Her involvement in Afghanistan goes back to 1999 when, as the BBC Kabul correspondent, she was the only western journalist based in the country. She reported on massacres, drought and war – and football matches and tourism, travelling widely on both sides of the frontline.

Kate was expelled by the Taleban in early 2001, but returned as a frontline reporter during the 2001 war, contributing to award-winning coverage. After 2002, Kate was based in London, but continued to return to Afghanistan to report on the country, making radio and television documentaries about the insurgency, the political economy of weapons smuggling and opium, and war crimes.

Her previous publications include joint authorship of the Chatham House paper No Shortcut to Stability: Justice, Politics and Insurgency in Afghanistan, and for AAN, The Takhar attack: Targeted killings and the parallel worlds of US intelligence and Afghanistan, and The Layha: Calling the Taleban to Account.

Kate has an MA in Middle Eastern Politics from Exeter University in Britain and previously worked in the BBC Arabic Service. She has also lived, studied and worked in the Middle East.