Iran walls off main entry point for immigrants on Afghan border

Arrests 12 people for collaborating with Israel

FE Team | Published: September 24, 2024 00:43:15

TEHRAN, Sept 23 (AFP): Iran's military has built a wall along more than 10 kilometres (6 miles) of its eastern border with Afghanistan, the main entry point for immigrants, local media reported Monday.
"More than 10 kilometres of walls have been built on the border and another 50 kilometres are ready to be walled off," ISNA news agency said, citing General Nozar Nemati, deputy commander of army ground forces.
Iran shares a more than 900-kilometre (560-mile) border with Afghanistan, and the Islamic republic hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
This comprises mostly well-integrated Afghans who arrived over the past 40 years after fleeing conflict in their home country.
The flow of Afghan immigrants has increased since the Taliban took over in August 2021 after US forces withdrew.
Tehran has not given official figures for the number of Afghan immigrants, but member of parliament Abolfazl Torabi has estimated their number at "between six and seven million".
The authorities have recently increased pressure on "illegal" refugees, regularly announcing expulsions through the eastern border.
"By blocking the border, we want to control the country's entries and exits" and "better increase the security of border areas", General Nemati said.
In September, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said Iran will employ other methods including barbed wire and water-filled ditches in addition to the wall to block the border.
On September 13, the spokesman for the parliamentary National Security Committee, Ebrahim Rezaei, said police plan to "expel more than two million illegal citizens in the near future".
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have announced the arrest of 12 people accused of "collaborating" with the country's arch-foe Israel, local media reported on Sunday.
Revolutionary Guards "arrested 12 collaborators with the Zionist regime (Israel) in six provinces" of the Islamic republic, the Fars news agency said.
Iran regularly announces the arrest of people accused of working as agents for foreign countries, most notably Israel.
Fars did not specify the dates or locations of the arrests, but said the accused had been "planning to take action against the security" of Iran.
Tehran has accused Israel of being behind sabotage operations at a number of its nuclear sites, as well as assassinating several Iranian scientists.