As Iran-Taliban tensions rise, Afghan migrants in tinderbox

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : "Through neighbors, Iran can sanctions-bust, exchange currency, barter and keep its economy alive," said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Program.
51% : Many of those refugees fleeing Afghanistan's repression and destitution harbor humble dreams: of scraping by as construction laborers, factory workers and farmhands in Iran.
50% : Last week, Khatibzadeh promised Tehran would accredit Taliban diplomats for the first time to help process the mountains of consular cases.
46% : Iran estimates at least a million Afghans have sought refuge in the country over the last eight months.
42% : The lucky ones land in the jumble of Tehran, squeezing into dank and crowded alleyways.
39% : As Afghanistan plunged into economic crisis after the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, the 960-kilometer (572-mile) long border with Iran became a lifeline for Afghans who piled into smugglers' pickups in desperate search of money and work.
38% : In 1998, Iran nearly went to war against the Taliban after 10 of its diplomats were killed when their consulate was stormed in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
37% : Since the Taliban takeover, Iran has escalated its deportations of Afghan migrants, according to the U.N. migration agency, warning that its sanctions-hit economy cannot handle the influx.
37% : Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh lamented last month that "waves of displaced Afghans cannot continue to Iran" because Iran's "capacities are limited."
35% : Roshangol Hakimi, a 35-year-old who fled to Iran after the Taliban takeover, said smugglers held her and her 9-year-old daughter hostage over a week until her relatives paid ransom.
35% : "Death to Iran," chanted crowds in Herat and the southeastern Khost province.
33% : Iran has grown more anxious as a string of bloody attacks in Afghanistan targeting the country's minority Hazara Shiites makes clear that extremist threats proliferate despite Taliban promises to provide security.
32% : Many of the 251,000 returned from Iran this year bear the wounds and scars of the arduous trip, he said, surviving car accidents, gunshots and other travails.
32% : "The biggest challenge is that Iran is not ready for the new situation of refugees," Tehran-based political analyst Rea Ghobeishavi said of the increasing friction between Afghans and Iranians.
32% : Impossible to authenticate, the grainy clips -- footage showing Iranians insulting and beating up Afghans -- have been dismissed as misleading in Iran but in Afghanistan have dominated headlines, stoking public fury.
32% : "The ill-treatment of Afghan refugees in Iran adversely affects relations between the two countries ... allowing antagonists to conspire," Muttaqi was quoted as saying.
31% : Afghans in three cities rallied against Iran.
31% : Iran suspended all of its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan for 10 days.
13% : "There are reports that some extremists are entering Iran easily with refugees," said Abbas Husseini, a prominent Afghan journalist in Tehran, describing mounting paranoia in Iran.

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