Surge in Afghans driven from Iran in spy hunt after Israel attacks
Asghari, 35, is among tens of thousands of Afghans whom Iran has deported home in the past few weeks, in the fallout of a conflict the United Nations says risks further destabilising Afghanistan, already battling a humanitarian crisis.
"It is hard to even find a place to rent, and if you find one, the price is unaffordable ... and there is no work at all," Asghari said at the end of his family's long journey back to western Afghanistan.
He said he had no idea what to do next in his home country, marooned in international isolation since the Islamist Taliban militia took over in 2021.
The United Nations refugee agency estimates Iran deported home an average of more than 30,000 Afghans each day during the war, up 15-fold from about 2,000 earlier.
"We've always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally illegal nationals must return," Iran's government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday.
That did not mean expulsion, however, but rather a return to their homeland, the spokesperson added, without mention of a hunt for spies.
There was no immediate comment from the Afghanistan government.
Before a ceasefire was struck last week in their 12-day war, Iran and Israel traded strikes, which the U.S. joined with an attack on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities.
On national security grounds, Iran had already been cracking down this year on foreign nationals, including Afghans, but stepped up its efforts during the conflict, deported Afghans and humanitarian officials said in interviews.
Iranian authorities estimated about 2.6 million Afghans were living in the country without legal documentation in 2022, following the fall of Kabul as U.S.-led foreign forces withdrew.
"They saw us as suspected spies and treated us with contempt," Asghari said. "From ordinary people to the police and the government, they were always saying you Afghans are our first enemies, you destroyed us from inside."
In an interview, Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative for Afghanistan, said he was concerned about the pushback, as anger at the strikes could have spilled over on Afghans in Iran.
"They have undergone a very frightening war, we understand that but we also feel that perhaps the Afghans are being scapegoated and some of the anger is being taken out on them," he told Reuters in Kabul.
He warned of increasing concern of a "pefect storm" brewing for Afghanistan as neighbouring Pakistan also pushed back displaced Afghans in a huge repatriation drive begun in 2023.
Compounding Afghanistan's woes, its economy, crippled by sanctions on the banking sector since the Taliban took over, now faces severe aid cuts by Western capitals, he added.
"This is a recipe for a great amount of instability in the region for sure," said Jamal.
UNHCR's Afghanistan operations have received less than a quarter of the funding needed this year.
Afghanistan's aid program has shrunk to just $538 million from $3.2 billion three years ago. More than 1.2 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year, often with just the clothes on their backs and any belongings they could carry.
Iran says it will keep up the action on illegal immigrants.
"We have legal migrants, many of them poets, writers, doctors, skilled workers and don't want to push everyone out," the government spokesperson added.
"But when it comes to illegals, national policies that have been taken will be implemented."
Ahmad Fawad Rahimi, 26, said he had a valid work visa for Iran but decided to return last month as his family worried about the war.
En route he was picked up and placed in a detention camp, where he said inmates received little food and water, had their mobile telephones taken from them during their stay and were then charged high prices for transport across the border.
"Before the war, at least we would receive a warning the first time, and on the second arrest we would be deported," he said.
"But now we are all treated as spies. They say Afghans have sided with their enemies and must go back."
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Currently – albeit unnoticed by many – his activities are still making headlines, for Reilly's present area of operations these days is in Gaza. There he runs the US private military contractor Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) which, along with another private security contractor, UG Solutions, act as partner to the controversial US-Israeli organisation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that has sidelined the UN and other international organisations as the main supplier of aid in Gaza. Last week, GHF was hit by fresh controversy when one former security contractor who had worked for them told journalists that he witnessed colleagues opening fire several times on hungry Palestinians who posed no threat. Members of a private US security company, contracted by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private US-backed aid group which the UN refuses to work with over neutrality concerns, direct displaced Palestinians as they gather to receive relief Heated debate WHILE GHF has said the allegations are categorically false, the shadowy group from its very inception has been at the centre of heated debate as to precisely what role it performs in Gaza and at who's behest. So just what is known about GHF, those behind it and where its money comes from? The organisation was first established in February this year, shortly after Israel passed legislation seeking to bar the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), the single largest provider of humanitarian aid in occupied Palestine. Israel has long sought to neuter the work of UNWRA which it claims was close to the Hamas authorities. 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For its part, the 'GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland... and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered (branch),' the ESA added in a statement. Right-wing Knesset members Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and Bezalel Smotrich, attend a special session at the Knesset Israel's parliament, to approve and swear in a new right-wing government, in Jerusalem 'Out of nowhere' THE absence of a funding paper trail along with the sometimes opaque backgrounds of some key players in setting up the GHF are only a few of many concerns since it first appeared almost out of nowhere. As far as the structure of the GHF operation goes, its components are as follows: GHF acts as the overall umbrella organisation. After the early resignation of its original executive director Jake Wood in May, who said the GHF would not be able to fulfil the principles of 'humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence', he was replaced by former USAID official John Acree and former Trump adviser Johnnie Moore. The latter is an evangelical preacher and public relations professional with close ties to both the White House and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Moore was instrumental in an evangelical Christian drive during Trump's first term in office to convince the president to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move the US embassy there. Alongside GHF run its private security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, headed by Reilly and the sole American director of SRS's Israeli branch and financial officer, Charles 'Chuck' J Africano. 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Quiet Professionals is led by Andy Wilson who, on his company's own webpage, is described as a 'valorous combat decorated retired Sergeant Major of the United States Army with 20 years of service… 14 of which were served in a Special Mission Unit'. Quiet Professionalss chief business officer Leo Kryszewski is also known to have spent four years with the CIA's Special Activities Division and the US Army's Office of Military Support, a clandestine intelligence unit often referred to within Joint Special Forces Command (JSOC) as Task Force Orange Helping draw up the blueprint for the GHF, comprising of these main constituent players and parties, was one of the world's most prestigious consulting firms – the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), though the group has since distanced itself from yjr GHF. But as a Financial Times (FT) investigation revealed a few days ago, before disavowing the project, 'BCG's role was more extensive than it has publicly described'. People carry boxes of relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) Israeli think tank ACCORDING to the FT investigation, BCG was originally engaged by Orbis, a Washington-area security contractor that was preparing the study on behalf of the Tachlith Institute, an Israeli think tank. BCG was chosen as a consultant, according to people familiar with the early work, says the FT, 'because of its longstanding relationship with Philip Reilly, an ex-CIA operative who worked for Orbis'. Citing the same sources, the FT said BCG's involvement stretched 'over seven months covering more than $4m of contracted work and involving internal discussion at senior levels of the firm'. As part of the project, codenamed 'Aurora', the BCG team is said to have also built a financial model for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza. This included cost estimates 'for relocating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the strip' and the economic impact of such a mass displacement. One scenario estimated more than 500,000 Gazans would leave the enclave with 'relocation packages' worth $9,000 per person, or around $5bn in total, the FT detailed. For its part, BCG told the FT senior figures were repeatedly 'misled on the scope of the work by the partners running the project'. Referring to the work on post-war Gaza, BCG said: 'The lead partner was categorically told no, and he violated this directive. We disavow this work.' Just precisely where much of the funding for the GHF comes from remains as shrouded in secrecy as the background of some of the individuals involved. These past weeks the US announced $30m for the GHF but it's thought to have received over $150m so far, much of which is believed to have has gone on hiring mercenaries, some from American private security firms. One job advertisement from UG Solutions said it was seeking 'Special Forces qualified personnel, SFOD-A/CAG, Green Berets, Army Rangers, PJs, Marine Reconnaissance (MARSOC), or other similar backgrounds'. Those 'skilled in unconventional warfare tactics' and selected ' must be ready to deploy within two weeks of May 20, 2025', the advertisement confirmed. While questions remain as to where exactly all of GHF's funding comes from, last month former Israeli defence minister and opposition MP, Avigdor Lieberman, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz he was convinced that Israel's defence ministry and its intelligence arm Mossad were the main paymasters. To date, the GHF's performance in Gaza has been abysmal and mired in controversy. According to most global humanitarian organisations, its presence is only making an already dire situation in Gaza even worse. As a result, these past few days, more than 170 NGOs have called for immediate action to end the 'deadly' GHF aid scheme and revert back to United Nations-led aid co-ordination mechanisms. GHF's role has thrown into sharp focus the dangers of outsourcing core humanitarian functions to private actors and whether, in fact, it is legally or ethically defensible. What happens next with the GHF involves two possible scenarios. The first is that its presence will be transitory, having failed to deliver on an aid mission that should be undertaken by the UN. The cost, meantime, in terms of Palestinian suffering and lives will only continue to rise. The second scenario is that the GHF remains and becomes an instrument of power as part of a strategy that many believe is aimed at herding Palestinians into designated areas to enable a wider process of ethnic cleansing. 'Greater Israel' ISRAEL'S far-right politicians including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, doubtless see the work of the GHF as crucial in their messianic mission to create a 'greater Israel'. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continues to speak of creating 'a sterile zone' for Palestinians. For decades now the CIA's Special Activities Division – now renamed the Special Activities Center (SAC) – has performed countless covert roles, some helping to orchestrate regime change in many places. The Latin motto of SAC is Tertia Optio, which means 'Third Option'. In other words, covert action represents an additional option within the realm of national security when diplomacy and military action are not feasible. With diplomacy at an effective standstill over Gaza, the obvious danger is that other 'options' become in the eyes of some the real way 'forward'. While the GHF's security partners Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions are private companies, the fact that their chief officers and many within their ranks are past operatives of the CIA and its SAC leaves many uneasy. Just as the likes of Philip Reilly and his CIA team all those years ago in Afghanistan were tasked with laying the groundwork for what was to come, could it be that now, through the use of private contractors, much the same is being done in Gaza today? The fact that figures like Reilly and others still have the ear or indeed direct links to senior US government and Israeli officials only adds to this growing disquiet over the actual motives behind GHF's shadowy role in Gaza.
