And 600,000 have arrived since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021 and imposed their austere version of Islamic law. Image for representation purpose only. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Pakistan’s plan to evict hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants is “unacceptable”, Taliban authorities said Wednesday, denying allegations by Islamabad its citizens were responsible for a string of suicide attacks there.

Around 1.3 million Afghans are registered refugees in Pakistan and 880,000 more have legal status to remain, according to the latest United Nations figures.

But caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said Tuesday a further 1.7 million Afghans were in Pakistan illegally, giving a November 1 deadline to return home or face deportation.

The order comes as Pakistan grapples with a rise in attacks the government blames on militants operating from Afghanistan, a charge Kabul routinely denies.

“The behaviour of Pakistan against Afghan refugees is unacceptable,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on social media site X.

“Afghan refugees are not involved in Pakistan’s security problems. As long as they leave Pakistan voluntarily, that country should tolerate them.”

Bugti claimed Afghan nationals were responsible for 14 of 24 suicide attacks in Pakistan since January.

“We deny all these claims because Afghans have migrated to other countries for their safety, their security,” said Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation.

“It’s natural when someone migrates to another country for his safety, he would never want insecurity there,” he told AFP.

Legions of Afghans have migrated to neighbouring Pakistan over decades of conflict during the Soviet invasion, the following civil war and the U.S.-led occupation.

And 600,000 have arrived since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021 and imposed their austere version of Islamic law.

Taliban authorities have been trying to tempt back those who left, despite the nation suffering from a massive scaleback of aid following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government.

Rights monitors have also reported reprisal killings and disappearances.

“Internally work is underway to ensure the capacity for Afghans coming back to the country, so that they live in their country in a peaceful atmosphere,” Haqqani told AFP.

File photo of a general view of the border post in Torkham, Pakistan
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistani authorities closed a key border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan on September 6 shortly after border guards from the two sides exchanged fire, officials and residents said, in a sign of increasing tensions between the two neighbors.

Reasons why the two sides exchanged fire were not immediately made clear, said Nasrullah Khan, an official in Torkham, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

He said Pakistani government and military officials were in contact with their Afghan counterparts to defuse tensions.

Abdul Mateen Qani, the Afghan Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the clash between Afghan and Pakistani forces. He said officials from both sides were attempting to find out what caused the clash and ways to prevent such incidents in the future.

Pakistani authorities said dozens of trucks carrying perishable items, including vegetables and fruits, were waiting on both sides of the border for the reopening of the Torkham crossing, which is a vital commercial artery and trade route to Central Asian countries for Pakistan.

The border closure comes two days after caretaker Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar said U.S. military equipment left behind during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan had fallen into militant hands and made its way to the Pakistani Taliban.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have intensified attacks over the past months on Pakistan security forces. They are a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban.

The Afghan Taliban overran Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the last weeks of a chaotic pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

The Pakistani Taliban have released statements and video clips in recent months claiming they possess weapons such as guns with laser and thermal imaging systems.

Torkham witnessed previous clashes in February and the town remained closed for several days after the two sides accused each other of trying to build new posts along the border in February.

According to the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the clashes at the time caused millions in losses to traders whose perishable goods were ruined.

Afghanistan has never recognized the porous border that runs through the Pashtun heartland and dilutes the power of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group on both sides.

Pakistan says it has completed fencing along 97% of the border to stop cross-border attacks and smuggling. Pakistan also accuses the Afghan Taliban of providing sanctuaries to Pakistani militants who are living in Afghanistan.

Also on Wednesday, a mortar hit a house near the Afghan border, killing five Pakistanis— a mother and her four children. It was not immediately clear who fired the mortar and police officers were still investigating, local authorities said.

Currently, Pakistani security forces are carrying out intelligence-based operations against insurgency in the region. Militants often fire mortars to target security forces deployed in the region, and it has caused civilian casualties as well in recent years.

In November 2022, the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong cease-fire with the government in Islamabad, ordering its fighters to resume attacks across the country.