The 9/11 attacks in the United States and its subsequent war on terror has forced the international community to focus again on the Afghan refugee issue - a dismal crisis which has witnessed refugees crossing into Pakistan many times since 1979. Thirty years later, Afghanistan is still at war, but Pakistan is determined now to close the refugee camps, and other similar settlements, saying they have become sanctuaries for the Taliban militants battling the Afghan government and coalition troops across the border.

Since 2002, more than 2.8 million Afghans who fled their homeland have returned under a UN-assisted voluntary repatriation scheme, but almost the same number remain. President Pervez Musharraf, under international pressure to stop the infiltration of Taliban militants into Afghanistan from his country, recently said that many of the insurgents are Afghan refugees. Munir Akram, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations recently wrote to the UN Security Council stating that cross-border militancy is closely related to the presence of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He noted that the camps have often given rise to complaints that they provided shelter to the Taliban, who cross the long and porous border in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province, and are blamed for escalating the insurgency in Afghanistan that has claimed over 4,000 lives in 2006. Subsequently, in its most recent effort to clamp down on Taliban activity, Pakistan announced that the remaining 2.4 million Afghan refugees, most of them living in camps, must return home by 2009.

Pakistan will close down four Afghan refugee camps this year as part of its effort to stop Taliban cross-border attacks in Afghanistan. The decision to wind up the camps, with a population of 236,000, was taken for "security and development reasons" at a meeting of Pakistani, Afghan and UNHCR officials. Apparently, Girdi Jungle and Jungle Pir Alizai camps in southwestern Baluchistan province, and Katchagari and Jalozai in North West Frontier Province had been slated for closure in 2004. At a joint press conference, Pakistan's Minister of States and Frontier Regions, Sardar Yar Muhammed Rind, said that the four camps would be closed this summer - Katchagari and Jungle Pir Alizai would close by 15 June, while Jalozai and Girdi Jungle would be wound up by 31 August.

As pressure mounts on Pakistan, analysts say the fate of the Afghan refugee community is an important piece in the puzzle of regional militancy. Simply shifting them across the border could inflame tensions. Many argue that Pakistan's Afghan refugees - most of them, Pashtun like the majority that make up the Taliban movement - are being made a scapegoat. Closing down the camps may ease the pressure on Pakistan to combat militancy within its borders, but observers say the move could cause more problems. An exodus of poor Afghans is likely to exacerbate existing social and economic problems within Afghanistan. Moreover, refugees without a home or means to support themselves could join the Taliban, either out of resentment or the need to survive. While conditions are poor in the Jalozai camp, many Afghans are better off here with well-built mud houses and well-kept schools, than they would be in Afghanistan. The UNHCR, provides mobile health-care centers and water, amenities they may lack in a land many of them barely know.

Many refugees have expressed concern about returning to Afghanistan. Conditions of general insecurity and abuse that the refugees had experienced in the past have often been cited as reasons for their fearing to return to Afghanistan. They also fear reprisals against their particular ethnic group because of the assumption that they are anti-Taliban (or Taliban) sympathizers. Moreover, social security - availability of jobs, housing, and other essential amenities - is not guaranteed on their return to Afghanistan.

Whether the largely Pashtun refugee population stays or goes, many in Washington say that assisting them is crucial to stemming Taliban militancy. Speaking at a recent Congressional hearing, James Dobbins, an analyst with the RAND Corporation, said that the US and the International Community needed to address the grievances and aspirations of the Pashtun population on both sides of the border.

The Government of Afghanistan has emphasized that any decision about the fate of Afghan refugees must be taken in accordance with international law and the provisions of a tripartite agreement reached between the Governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the UNHCR. Finding a solution to the problem, however, is difficult as Pakistan is not a signatory to the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention or its subsequent protocols, meaning that there is no clear-cut policy on how to handle refugees in Pakistan.