Amid rising tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Islamabad is gearing up to relaunch its initiative to deport Afghan refugees, according to a senior intelligence official based in the capital city who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Media Line.
The decision to restart the deportation process comes in the wake of a recent terrorist attack on a Pakistani military base near the Afghanistan border, reinforcing Pakistan’s resolve to expel all Afghan nationals forcibly.
“Pakistan has consistently urged Kabul to take decisive action against terrorists operating within its borders,” the official stated. “However, the lack of seriousness from Kabul in addressing these concerns has prompted the revival of the deportation initiative. In the broader national interest, Pakistan is determined to relieve itself of the burden posed by Afghan refugees.”
The official revealed that high-level officials are currently finalizing the strategy for the deportations, which are slated to commence after the conclusion of Ramadan in mid-April.
Highlighting Islamabad’s stance, the official emphasized the belief that terrorists frequently traverse the shared borders, seeking refuge in Afghanistan following attacks on Pakistani security forces.
In October 2023, the Pakistani government announced its intention to apprehend and repatriate hundreds of thousands of unregistered foreign nationals and migrants lacking proper documentation, setting a deadline for November 1, 2023. However, the move drew condemnation from the United Nations, the United States, and various international human rights organizations.
The repatriation measures have been anticipated to have an effect on roughly 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees of the 4 million whole Afghan nationals in Pakistan.
Most of the Afghans at the moment residing in Pakistan arrived in the course of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Between 600,000 and 800,000 Afghans are estimated to have entered Pakistan following the Taliban’s assumption of energy in Afghanistan in 2021.
In line with the UN’s Worldwide Group for Migration, over 500,000 Afghans left Pakistan after Islamabad imposed the November deadline for undocumented migrants to depart. Pakistani officers say that these Afghan residents both voluntarily returned or have been forcefully deported.
The deportation course of has been notably sluggish over the previous few months for unclear causes. The brand new efforts have been taken on amid mounting considerations in Islamabad over a surge in assaults on safety forces. Pakistani officers attribute these assaults to religiously motivated terrorists suspected of looking for refuge in Afghanistan’s rugged border areas.
Kabul, nonetheless, denies sheltering any terrorists.
A report printed in December 2023 by the impartial Islamabad-based Middle for Analysis and Safety Research discovered that “militant assaults in Pakistan claimed the lives of roughly 500 civilians and an equal variety of safety forces in 2023.” These fatality charges are Pakistan’s highest in six years. The report famous that many of the assaults occurred in areas bordering Afghanistan.
Primarily based on a cautious estimate, no less than 36 safety officers have been killed in terror incidents to this point in 2024.
Pakistan has lengthy been grappling with inner instability fueled by armed teams that function from secure havens within the border areas of Afghanistan.
One such group is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a company that’s banned in Pakistan and regarded a world terrorist group by the US. TTP has waged a 17-year rebellion in response to the Pakistani authorities’s operations in opposition to al-Qaida and armed insurgents from Afghanistan.
The resurgence of assaults in opposition to safety forces has heightened Islamabad’s considerations about cross-border terrorism and its dedication to addressing these threats.
The preliminary deportation announcement in October 2023 signaled the federal government’s intent to implement immigration legal guidelines and guarantee correct documentation for all residents. Nevertheless, the sluggish course of and criticism from worldwide stakeholders have sophisticated the coverage’s implementation.
On Wednesday, Pakistani Inside Minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi introduced the restructuring of Pakistan’s Nationwide Counter Terrorism Authority.
In an announcement, Naqvi underscored the “must broadly promote Pakistan’s nationwide narrative in opposition to the extremist ideology of terrorists.” He additionally dedicated to totally implementing the Nationwide Motion Plan, a 2014 federal program meant to crack down on terrorism.
Farzana Shah, a Peshawar-based protection professional specializing in Afghanistan’s armed teams, described the safety scenario inside Pakistan as “extremely intricate and risky.”
She informed The Media Line that the repatriation efforts are a part of Pakistan’s try to handle safety threats from the Afghan border area, particularly from TTP.
“Pakistan’s apprehensions relating to Afghanistan’s perceived inadequate dedication to addressing the TTP problem are long-standing and have been communicated by means of varied channels up to now,” Shah stated. She added that Afghanistan should reply critically to Pakistan’s considerations and collaborate.
Shah stated that worldwide stakeholders must become involved as effectively. “These efforts are essential to successfully deal with Pakistan’s considerations relating to safety threats whereas concurrently safeguarding the rights and well-being of refugees,” she stated.
Israr Ahmed Rajpoot, Rawalpindi-based professional in inner safety and Afghan affairs, informed The Media Line that Kabul has been treating latest terror assaults in Pakistan as an inner Pakistani drawback, whilst Islamabad has offered substantial proof “indicating the presence of terrorism masterminds on Afghan soil.”
“The scenario surrounding Pakistan’s determination to reinitiate the repatriation of Afghan refugees should be evaluated inside a broader context of regional safety considerations and strained bilateral relations,” Rajpoot stated. He pointed to the latest navy base assault in addition to “practically every day” assaults on safety forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a Pakistani province on the border with Afghanistan, as examples of ongoing safety considerations.
“Almost each assault on the safety forces traces again to Afghanistan,” Rajpoot stated. “In gentle of those circumstances, Pakistan’s option to deport Afghan nationals seems to be a assured transfer.”
Human rights implications
Andy Vermaut, a Brussels-based counter-extremism professional and president of the World Council for Public Diplomacy and Group Dialogue, informed The Media Line that the choice to repatriate Afghan residents “carries appreciable human rights implications, particularly in a rustic like Afghanistan, which remains to be recovering from the aftermath of wars.”
“The mass exodus threatens to worsen an already determined scenario in Afghanistan, a rustic struggling to rebuild from the large destruction that battle has introduced for years,” he stated.
Vermaut stated that some refugees have been in Pakistan for many years and have a number of generations of youngsters within the nation. For refugees like these, repatriating in Afghanistan, “a rustic they might not acknowledge or have connections with, typically inflicts profound emotional and psychological misery,” he defined.
He referred to as on the worldwide neighborhood to become involved. “Safeguarding and offering for essentially the most susceptible, particularly these displaced by battle, is a collective duty that transcends borders and belongs to humanity as an entire,” he stated.
Kamal Alam, a nonresident senior fellow on the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Middle, informed The Media Line that terror assaults in Pakistan can’t be attributed to the presence of Afghan refugees within the nation.
“Whereas it could be handy guilty Afghans, who’ve resided in Pakistan for over three many years in sure circumstances, there isn’t any credible intelligence linking nearly all of the assaults to the Afghan diaspora,” Alam stated. “That is primarily a home problem involving militant teams, compounded by a failure to handle relationships inside Afghanistan successfully.”
Alam stated that a number of Afghan governments have skilled strained relations with Pakistan. “This raises questions on whether or not Islamabad has failed to know Kabul’s priorities and wishes precisely,” he stated.
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