Pakistan moved decisively to enforce its sovereign right to regulate its borders as the final deadline for undocumented Afghan nationals expired, with security forces launching systematic and orderly repatriation across the Torkham and Chaman crossings-bringing to a close years of unchecked cross-border movement that Pakistani authorities say has directly fuelled terrorism, drug trafficking and a spiralling security crisis across Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The crackdown comes as Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir has drawn a firm line in the sand, making clear that Pakistan will no longer allow its decades of generous hospitality toward Afghan refugees to be exploited warning that hostile elements operating from Afghan soil and launching attacks on Pakistani citizens and security forces will be met with the full might of the state.
Pakistan has hosted over four million Afghan refugees for more than four decades-one of the largest refugee-hosting operations in modern history-but Islamabad says its patience has reached a breaking point, with cross-border militant sanctuaries directly responsible for the wave of terror attacks that have claimed hundreds of Pakistani lives in recent months, including the deadly assault on the Mangi Dam Police Station that triggered Operation Shaban.
Islamabad has made clear the repatriation is a matter of sovereign necessity-calling on the Afghan Taliban to take responsibility for their own people rather than expecting Pakistan to bear an unlimited burden while its borders are used as a launchpad for terrorism against the very country that sheltered millions of Afghan families for generations.
