After a childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran, I returned to the region as an adult and felt like I re-discovered a home I’d forgotten I’d lost. I ended up dividing my time between the Netherlands and the rest of the world.
I worked as an aid worker in Grozny, Chechnya, and in Taliban-ruled Kabul, as a diplomat in Tehran for the Dutch Foreign Service during 911 and its aftermath, and as an analyst and adviser in Afghanistan; first as a political adviser to the EU Special Representative in Kabul and independent analyst advising the Netherlands Embassy on their work in Uruzgan, then in 2009 I co-founded the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) in Kabul, where for many years I was co-director and senior analyst.
I rejoined AAN in 2021, after the tumultuous Taliban takeover.