Iran 'seeking conflict by proxy in Afghanistan': Britain says

Iran 'seeking conflict by proxy in Afghanistan': Britain : 35 minutes ago

British Defence Secretary Des Browne said there were signs that Iran was helping the Taliban fight coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Indications were that it was seeking to attack international troops "by proxy," he told the defence committee of parliament's lower House of Commons, which scrutinises Ministry of Defence administration and policy. "Demonstrably they have sought confrontation by proxy with us and the United States and other NATO members elsewhere in the region and there is some indication that they are doing the same in Afghanistan," he said on Tuesday.

Last month British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused elements in Tehran of "backing, financing, arming, supporting terrorism in Iraq."

Browne said that Iran was otherwise playing a positive role in Afghanistan, sealing its border and cutting off the flow of illegal drugs and providing investment. He said that "Iran do make a very positive contribution on the border in relation to drugs. They make significant investment inside Afghanistan as well." He said that as with other regional powers, such as India and Pakistan, it was in Iran's interest to see a strong, stable Afghanistan.
"This is a complex environment,".
Browne said ,"Regionally, an Afghanistan which is not a failed state and has a reduced drugs economy is in the strategic interest of all these countries.

Browne praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his efforts in tackling support for Taliban insurgents emanating from his country. "I believe that President Musharraf is committed to taking on this problem and in recent months they have stepped up their action against the Taliban to a level that we haven't previously seen," he said. He warned, however, that there "is no doubt that historically there were relations between elements of the Pakistan government structure and the Taliban, and it is highly improbable that those have gone away." Browne said Britain was encouraging Pakistan to clamp down on the madrassas -- Islamic religious schools blamed for radicalising youths. "It is a strategic issue for us because it is a strategic issue in relation to the security of the streets of this city (London), never mind Afghanistan," he said. Britain has pledged an extra 1,400 troops for Afghanistan, who are due to arrive within weeks, taking the country's contingent in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to 7,700.


Iran Pulls the Rug from Afghan Refugees : Haroun Mir

"Many of the Afghans who have been forced out of Iran are furious. The majority of them were picked out from their workplaces without being given the opportunity to take their family members or their belongings."... Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the following years of internal fights between different armed groups, more than 5 million Afghans have sought refuge in neighboring countries. Afghan people have been thankful for the assistance that Pakistan and Iran have provided the refugees, despite the economic burdens it has created on them. Now both countries are threatening to expel the refugees - Iran has already started - in a move that will create unprecedented economic and social crises for the Afghan government. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), close to a million Afghan refugees live in Iran and more than 2 million in Pakistan. In addition, there are a considerable number of illegal refugees in both countries. While a small number of Afghan refugees have been integrated into their host societies, the majority want to return home, but the Afghan government lacks resources and the capacity to take care of their elementary needs, such as housing. For instance, many refugees who have returned in the past five years still live in temporary tents exposed to Afghanistan's harsh climatic conditions. They lack basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation.
Yet with the economic situation in Afghanistan being so poor and with scant employment opportunities, the flood of refugees to Pakistan and Iran, as well as other countries, continues. The Afghan government, with the help of the UNHCR, has been negotiating with Iranian and Pakistani authorities on comprehensive mechanisms to repatriate its nationals in multiple phases because it does not have the capacity and resources to take in all of them at once. The majority of returnees converge on big cities such as the capital Kabul. In the past six years, the population in Kabul has almost doubled from 2 million to nearly 4 million. In addition to returnees, a number of poor farmers moved to Kabul in the hopes of making a relatively better living out of large reconstruction projects that were promised but never fulfilled.
The unexpected decision by Iran to force a massive expulsion of Afghan refugees is a political decision in the context of its confrontation with the West. For instance, the United States has accused Iran of involvement in the trafficking of arms and ammunition to the insurgency in Afghanistan. Iranian authorities have never used refugees as leverage against Afghanistan, even when they massed their troops at the Afghan border after the assassination of one of their diplomats by the Taliban in 1998. Now it seems they want to use the refugees as a political tool to remind the Afghan government and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces of Tehran's destabilizing capacity in Afghanistan simply by kicking out masses of refugees.
Every day thousands of Afghans, including women and children, are dropped off by the Iranian authorities on the Afghan side of the border. Here there are few facilities and Kabul does not have the resources to help them. In desperation, the Afghans can only look to the West for assistance. Reporting that some 44,000 people have been returned to Afghanistan from Iran as illegal immigrants since April 21, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has called on the governments of the two countries "to make sure that humanitarian considerations are taken into account", MaximsNews reported. The Iranian government has the legal right to expel any unwanted Afghans from its territory, but it also has the moral responsibility not to abuse them. Many of the Afghans who have been forced out of Iran are furious. The majority of them were picked out from their workplaces without being given the opportunity to take their family members or their belongings. Afghanistan's dire economic and social conditions make it vulnerable to malevolent policies of unfriendly governments. The only way for the Afghan authorities to cut off the influence of its neighboring countries in its internal affairs is to resolve the issues of refugees as soon as possible. Haroun Mir is a policy analyst for SIG & Partners Afghanistan. He served for more than five years as an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former defense minister.