Recent reports from the United States have emerged regarding the expulsion of Afghan refugees who were transferred to this country following the withdrawal of American forces in August 2021. These reports are concerning for various parties because the returning refugees are not being sent to a third country for permanent settlement. However, these Afghan refugees, most of whom are former Afghan military personnel and American collaborators, are being sent to Pakistan at a time when the Pakistani military regime has already sent millions of Afghans back to Afghanistan, and this process is still ongoing.
These refugees are being sent to Pakistan under the pretext of not complying with the principles of asylum or similar excuses, while Pakistan exploits the vulnerabilities of Afghan refugees and former military personnel for its own intelligence objectives. Existing realities have proven that the Pakistani military regime uses Afghan refugees, who are unemployed and under pressure, for its proxy wars.
The military regime had previously implemented similar malicious schemes in Badakhshan and Nuristan, where some former military personnel and impoverished Afghans transferred from Iran were incited to fight against Afghanistan’s stability with false promises. However, with the cooperation of the local people, the defense forces thwarted these nefarious and unclean schemes of the Pakistani intelligence within the first few hours.
This coordination and new plan between the US and Pakistan regarding the expulsion of refugees shows that both sides want to once again turn Afghanistan and the region into a playground to cover up their domestic and regional failures. Pakistan, grappling with severe internal political and economic crises and security issues, is trying to keep people occupied with such proxy games and divert attention from its domestic turmoil. While the United States also seeks to evade responsibility for its former allies and find new ways to destabilize the region.
The countries of the region, especially Iran, must also be vigilant. Iran shares a long land border with Pakistan, and the past records of the Pakistani military regime prove that they do not shy away from strengthening proxy groups for their own objectives. If these evil and proxy groups in Pakistan are further strengthened with U.S. support, Iran will also become another target of these dangerous groups alongside Afghanistan. Such policies of the Pakistani military regime are causing a fire to spread throughout the region, which will later require extensive and direct interventions to control; a crisis whose consequences will be detrimental to the entire region.