Why is Iran deporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans, accusing them of being ‘Israeli spies’?

Iran has deported hundreds of thousands of Afghans in recent months, alleging national security concerns. This comes after the authorities in March gave a deadline to Afghans to return to their homeland by July. More than four million undocumented refugees from Afghanistan had been living in Iran after they fled conflict in their country. According to the United Nations, about 50,000 people were returning daily in early July.

Iran’s immigration crackdown comes amid the widespread accusations suggesting that Afghans have links with the intelligence agency Mossad, with several individuals being arrested for espionage.

Tehran may be “looking for scapegoats” for its shortcomings in the war against Israel, an expert told the BBC. “The Iranian government is very embarrassed by their security failures", which show Iran "was very thoroughly penetrated by Israeli intelligence,” said Barnett Rubin, who served as senior adviser to the US Department of State. “So they had to find someone to blame.”

Some critics have also suggested that the Iranian government is seeking legitimacy by accusing undocumented Afghans of espionage to deport them.

On June 13, when Israel launched an attack on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities, the government urged citizens to report any suspicious activities that could be linked to Israeli operatives. Following this, several people, including Afghans, were detained in alleged connection to the Israeli attacks.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on June 18 said that 18 Afghans were arrested in Mashhad for building drones for Israel, according to Afghan Witness, an independent monitoring group. However, the provincial deputy security chief later said that the arrests had no connections to drone-making or Israeli links and were solely made for being in the country illegally.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 1.5 million Afghans have left Iran since January. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation told the BBC that over 918,000 Afghans, some of whom had been in Iran for generations, returned between 22 June - 22 July.

Since the 1970s, millions of Afghans have fled to Iran and Pakistan, most of whom did so at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and when the Taliban took over in 2021. Afghans also face hate crimes in Iran, which have been heightened by social media in recent years.

Experts have warned that Afghanistan does not have the capacity to accommodate the growing number of nationals who are being forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan during the time of economic crisis in the country.