Pakistanis in Afghanistan
Encyclopedia
Pakistanis in Afghanistan include diplomats, trader
s, businessperson
s and workers. Because Pakistan
and Afghanistan
are neighbouring states with a loosely-controlled border
, and a distributed population of ethnic Pashtuns
and Baloch people
, there is constant flow of population between the two countries.
and the Mughals
, as well as nomad people from the Indian subcontinent
(including modern-day Pakistan) have been invading and coming to Afghanistan for the past many centuries. Before the mid-19th century, Afghanistan and the entire present-day Pakistan were part of the Durrani Empire
and ruled by a successive line of Pashtun kings who had their capitals in Afghan cities. In 1857, in his review of J.W. Kaye's
The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels
describes "Afghanistan" as: Thus, interaction and migration between the native people in this region was common. After the Second Anglo-Afghan War
, the Durand Line
was established in the late 1800s for fixing the limits of sphere of influence
between Mortimer Durand
of British India
and Afghan Amir
Abdur Rahman Khan
. When Pakistan inherited this single-page agreement in 1947, which was basically to end politicial interference beyond the frontier
line between Afghanistan and what was then colonial British India, it divided the indigenous ethnic Pashtun
and Baloch
tribes.
During the 1980s Soviet war
, a large number of Pakistan-based Mujahideen
forces began crossing the Pak-Afghan
border into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and the Soviet-backed Afghan government
.
After the death of Massoud and the removal of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan in late 2001 by US
-led coalition forces, members of the Taliban regrouped and began a strong insurgency
campain inside Afghanistan. The insurgents are members of Afghan-based and Afghan-led militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban (including the Quetta Shura
chapter), the Haqqani network
, or al-Qaida and others. The militant groups include a small number of Pakistanis and other Muslim foreigners among their ranks.
, but also less-accessible provinces such as Ghazni
, Wardak, or Helmand. Many work in the construction sector, while others have found white-collar jobs such as information technology professionals for United Nations organisations and foreign companies in urban areas; they have an increasing demand due to their skills and mostly originate from the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. As many as one-sixth cross the border on any given day.
In May 2011, several expatriate Pakistanis crossing the border at Torkham
were routinely being harassed and bothered by intelligence agencies in Pakistan; some were asked repetitive questions as to why they were going to Afghanistan while others had their materials and laptops searched. The expatriates sent a complaint and brought the issue to the notice of the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul, Muhammad Sadiq
.
reported that about 6,000 Pakistanis from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa crossed into Afghanistan, which included women and children. While fighting in northwest-Pakistan between the Pakistani Armed Forces and the Pakistani Taliban may have been one reason, Sunni Shia sectarian strife
was also suggested as a possible driver for their flight. They were able to receive medical aid in Khost
and Paktika
provinces. By September 2008, their number had reached 20,000, and about 70% of the refugees were Pakistanis while the rest were Afghans who had settled in Pakistan
during the last 20 or so years. More Pakistani refugees went to Afghanistan after the 2010 Pakistan floods
.
region, the city of Quetta
and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, and engaged in attacks against US
-led NATO forces
and the Government of Afghanistan. NATO and Afghan officials also blame Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) spy network for being involved in some of the attacks. Besides the serious criminals, there are unknown number of Pakistani prisoners in Afghanistan who are held for visa violation or petty crimes.
Trader
The term Trader can refer to:* Merchant, retailer or one who attempts to generally buy wholesale and sell later at a profit* Trader , someone who buys and sells financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc....
s, businessperson
Businessperson
A businessperson is someone involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, or physical capital. An entrepreneur is an example of a business person...
s and workers. Because Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
are neighbouring states with a loosely-controlled border
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
, and a distributed population of ethnic Pashtuns
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
and Baloch people
Baloch people
The Baloch or Baluch are an ethnic group that belong to the larger Iranian peoples. Baluch people mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia....
, there is constant flow of population between the two countries.
History
Dynasties, such as those of the Delhi SultanateDelhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi based kingdoms or sultanates, of Turkic origin in medieval India. The sultanates ruled from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, when the last was replaced by the Mughal dynasty...
and the Mughals
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
, as well as nomad people from the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
(including modern-day Pakistan) have been invading and coming to Afghanistan for the past many centuries. Before the mid-19th century, Afghanistan and the entire present-day Pakistan were part of the Durrani Empire
Durrani Empire
The Durrani Empire was a Pashtun dynasty centered in Afghanistan and included northeastern Iran, the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan, and northwestern India. It was established at Kandahar in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, an Afghan military commander under Nader Shah of Persia and chief...
and ruled by a successive line of Pashtun kings who had their capitals in Afghan cities. In 1857, in his review of J.W. Kaye's
John William Kaye
Sir John William Kaye was a British military historian.The son of Charles Kaye, a solicitor, he was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military College, Addiscombe. From 1832 to 1841 he was an officer in the Bengal Artillery, afterwards spending some years in literary pursuits both in...
The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
describes "Afghanistan" as: Thus, interaction and migration between the native people in this region was common. After the Second Anglo-Afghan War
Second Anglo-Afghan War
The Second Anglo-Afghan War was fought between the United Kingdom and Afghanistan from 1878 to 1880, when the nation was ruled by Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty, the son of former Emir Dost Mohammad Khan. This was the second time British India invaded Afghanistan. The war ended in a manner...
, the Durand Line
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
was established in the late 1800s for fixing the limits of sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
between Mortimer Durand
Mortimer Durand
Sir Henry Mortimer Durand was a British diplomat and civil servant of colonial British India.-Background:Born at Sehore, Bhopal, India, he was the son of Sir Henry Marion Durand, the Resident of Baroda and he was educated at Blackheath Proprietary School, and Tonbridge School.-Career:Durand...
of British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
and Afghan Amir
Emir
Emir , meaning "commander", "general", or "prince"; also transliterated as Amir, Aamir or Ameer) is a title of high office, used throughout the Muslim world...
Abdur Rahman Khan
Abdur Rahman Khan
Abdur Rahman Khan was Emir of Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901.The third son of Mohammad Afzal Khan, and grandson of Dost Mohammad Khan, Abdur Rahman Khan was considered a strong ruler who re-established the writ of the Afghan government in Kabul after the disarray that followed the second...
. When Pakistan inherited this single-page agreement in 1947, which was basically to end politicial interference beyond the frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
line between Afghanistan and what was then colonial British India, it divided the indigenous ethnic Pashtun
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
and Baloch
Baloch people
The Baloch or Baluch are an ethnic group that belong to the larger Iranian peoples. Baluch people mainly inhabit the Balochistan region and Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia....
tribes.
During the 1980s Soviet war
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
, a large number of Pakistan-based Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
forces began crossing the Pak-Afghan
Durand Line
The Durand Line refers to the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which has divided the ethnic Pashtuns . This poorly marked line is approximately long...
border into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and the Soviet-backed Afghan government
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was a government of Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992. It was both ideologically close to and economically dependent on the Soviet Union, and was a major belligerent of the Afghan Civil War.- Saur Revolution :...
.
After the death of Massoud and the removal of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan in late 2001 by US
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
-led coalition forces, members of the Taliban regrouped and began a strong insurgency
Taliban insurgency
The Taliban insurgency took root shortly after the group's fall from power following the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The Taliban continue to attack Afghan, U.S., and other ISAF troops and many terrorist incidents attributable to them have been registered. The war has also spread over the southern and...
campain inside Afghanistan. The insurgents are members of Afghan-based and Afghan-led militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban (including the Quetta Shura
Quetta Shura
The Quetta Shura is a militant organization composed of top leadership of the Afghan Taliban, that is believed to be based since about 2001 in the city of Quetta in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Shura was formed after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was toppled in late 2001 and the...
chapter), the Haqqani network
Haqqani network
The Haqqani Network is an insurgent group fighting against US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. Originating from Afghanistan during the mid-1970s, it was nurtured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence during the 1980s Soviet war in...
, or al-Qaida and others. The militant groups include a small number of Pakistanis and other Muslim foreigners among their ranks.
Workers
Pakistani expatriates have been involved in the rebuilding and reconstruction of Afghanistan and have made contributions towards the Afghan economy. By 2006, there were about 60,000 Pakistanis working in Afghanistan; the exact number was unclear because of the lack of government records. Pakistanis could be found working not just in the main cities such as KandaharKandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
, but also less-accessible provinces such as Ghazni
Ghazni
For the Province of Ghazni see Ghazni ProvinceGhazni is a city in central-east Afghanistan with a population of about 141,000 people...
, Wardak, or Helmand. Many work in the construction sector, while others have found white-collar jobs such as information technology professionals for United Nations organisations and foreign companies in urban areas; they have an increasing demand due to their skills and mostly originate from the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. As many as one-sixth cross the border on any given day.
In May 2011, several expatriate Pakistanis crossing the border at Torkham
Torkham
Torkham is a border crossing town in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan and the Khyber Agency of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, right on the Durand Line border....
were routinely being harassed and bothered by intelligence agencies in Pakistan; some were asked repetitive questions as to why they were going to Afghanistan while others had their materials and laptops searched. The expatriates sent a complaint and brought the issue to the notice of the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul, Muhammad Sadiq
Mohammed Sadiq (diplomat)
Mohammed Sadiq is a Pakistani diplomat.He was appointed Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan in December 2008.He has held a number of other senior posts within the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC in 1999-2000.-References:...
.
Refugees
In January 2008, BBCBBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
reported that about 6,000 Pakistanis from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa crossed into Afghanistan, which included women and children. While fighting in northwest-Pakistan between the Pakistani Armed Forces and the Pakistani Taliban may have been one reason, Sunni Shia sectarian strife
Sectarian violence in Pakistan
Sectarian violence in Pakistan spark up occasionally between the predominant Sunnis and minority Shias. According to Library of Congress, Pew Research Center, Oxford University, the CIA Factbook and other experts, Shi'a Islam in Pakistan make up 5-20% of the total Muslim population, while the...
was also suggested as a possible driver for their flight. They were able to receive medical aid in Khost
Khost Province
Khost is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the east of the country. Khost province used to be part of Paktia province in the past...
and Paktika
Paktika Province
Paktika is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. It is in the south-east of the country. Most of the population is Pashtun. Its capital is Sharan.-Political and military situation:...
provinces. By September 2008, their number had reached 20,000, and about 70% of the refugees were Pakistanis while the rest were Afghans who had settled in Pakistan
Afghans in Pakistan
Afghans in Pakistan are mostly refugees who fled Afghanistan during the 1980s Soviet war as well as diplomats, traders, businesspersons, workers, exchange students, tourists and other visitors. As of March 2009, some 1.7 million registered Afghan nationals were reported to be living in Pakistan,...
during the last 20 or so years. More Pakistani refugees went to Afghanistan after the 2010 Pakistan floods
2010 Pakistan floods
The 2010 Pakistan floods began in late July 2010, resulting from heavy monsoon rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan regions of Pakistan and affected the Indus River basin. Approximately one-fifth of Pakistan's total land area was underwater, approximately...
.
Crime
Pakistan and Afghanistan have an irregular and poorly-marked border. This allows militants to frequently cross back and forth across the border unchecked and undetected. A few of the insurgents and militants in Afghan resistance groups were of Pakistani origin. They have been arrested in the last decade and are held in different prisons across the country. They are usually from regions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, including the WaziristanWaziristan
Waziristan is a mountainous region near the Northwest of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering some 11,585 km² . The area is entirely populated by ethnic Pashtuns . The language spoken in the valley is Pashto/Pakhto...
region, the city of Quetta
Quetta
is the largest city and the provincial capital of the Balochistan Province of Pakistan. Known as the "Fruit Garden of Pakistan" due to the diversity of its plant and animal wildlife, Quetta is home to the Hazarganji Chiltan National Park, which contains some of the rarest species of wildlife in the...
and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, and engaged in attacks against US
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
-led NATO forces
International Security Assistance Force
The International Security Assistance Force is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by Resolution 1386 as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement...
and the Government of Afghanistan. NATO and Afghan officials also blame Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI) spy network for being involved in some of the attacks. Besides the serious criminals, there are unknown number of Pakistani prisoners in Afghanistan who are held for visa violation or petty crimes.
Notable Pakistanis buried in Afghanistan
- Khan Abdul Ghaffar KhanKhan Abdul Ghaffar KhanKhan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was an Afghan, Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India...
(Bacha Khan), leader of the non-violent Khudai KhidmatgarKhudai KhidmatgarKhudai Khidmatgar literally translates as the servants of God, represented a non-violent freedom struggle against the British Empire by the Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province....
movement, founder of the National Awami PartyNational Awami PartyThe National Awami Party was a leftist political party in Pakistan. The party was founded in Dhaka in erstwhile East Pakistan in July 1957 through the merger of several leftist and progressive groups. It advocated provincial autonomy, rights on the basis of ethnicity, recognition of ethinicities...
and Politician in PakistanPolitics of PakistanPolitics of Pakistan have taken place in the framework of a federal republic, where the system of government has at times been parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential. In the current parliamentary system, the President of Pakistan is the largely ceremonial head of state, the Prime...