By Zia Ahmadi and Mustafa Saber
HERAT – Islam Qala, a small border town that forms the gateway between Iran and Afghanistan, is a focus of concern for Afghan officials fighting the Taliban insurgency because some believe Iran is using it to infiltrate guerrillas intent on destabilizing the Kabul government.
“I was working in Iran for about eight months,” said one man, a former refugee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But I got an offer from the Taliban in Gozara district [of Herat province] offering me a higher salary, so I accepted.”
Once he had crossed the border into Afghanistan, he said Pakistanis and Iranians based in the hills of Pashtun district, the site of a growing insurgency, gave him military training.
For four months, the man said he participated in armed attacks on behalf of the Taliban in the Gozara and Pashtun Zarghon districts, and received a monthly salary of 20,000-30,000 Pakistani rupees (US$240 to $360).
“We struck security posts in the villages of Toot, Siyawooshan and Injel, as well as carrying out attacks on foreign military convoys,” he said.
Now he is happily settled in civilian life, having been awarded a certificate by the Peace and Reconciliation Commission – an Afghan body established in 2005 as a mechanism for engaging with insurgents – that records his decision to lay down his arms.
Border policeofficials in Islam Qala say that more than 100 Afghans return from Iran daily. Many lack refugee documents or other identity cards to prove their Afghan citizenship and there is no adequate process to check them, which leads to many undesirables passing through, they say.
“Dozens of refugees are deported from Iran every day,” said Abdullah Achakzai, a border police officer who works at the Islam Qala checkpoint. “We have caught Arab and Iranian citizens trying to enter Afghanistan without the proper documentation and have turned them over to the National Directorate of Security, NDS. But we cannot check everybody so carefully. We do not have enough officers, or the right equipment.”
Haji Sher Ahmad, who owns a hotel in Islam Qala, told the Institute for War and Peace Reporting that many foreigners had stayed there recently.
“Several men who were speaking Arabic, and had apparently been deported from Iran, came to my hotel and stayed several nights,” he said. “They asked for the best rooms, and ordered the most expensive food. I contacted the police, but they did not do anything.”
An employee of the Bamyan Chahr Fasel Hotel in Herat city said that over the past year, several people had come to the hotel introducing themselves as Afghan refugees returning from Iran, but were in fact speaking Arabic among themselves.
Some Afghan commentators have poured cold water on the speculation around the reported relaxation of border restrictions. “It is too early to say that Iran is going to use these Afghans for military purposes,” said political expert Ahmad Saeedi.
Saeedi thinks a more subtle Iranian opposition to the United States and the Afghan government could have been the reason behind the alleged move.
“Iran wants to show its sympathy to the Afghans, who have suffered so much as a result of Iranian deportation. It wants to gain a political, social and economic advantage in Afghanistanbecause of its opposition to the United States,” he said.
Basir Begzad, a political analyst in Herat, suggests that the reported frontier opening was an attempt to undermine confidence in the Kabul authorities and the international community. “They want to show the world that Afghans are not happy with the current government and the foreign forces, and that they run away as soon as they get the chance,” he said.
Zia Ahmadi and Mustafa Saber are IWPR-trained reporters based in Herat.
