The Christian Science Monitor reports that for a little more than the price of tea, people are crossing illegally from Pakistan into Afghanistan every day without any passport or identification documents of any kind. For about 10 rupees (about 15 cents), they are bribing the border security forces to let them through.
Abdul Haleem, who was preparing to cross last week, says migrants can bypass even the occasional searches of pedestrians by paying 100 rupees (about $1.50) to hop on the back of amotorcycle. With young men perched on top, motorcycles roar through the checkpoint, seeming to stop for no one. As many as 4,000 motorcycles pass through Chaman every day, according to police sources.
For 12 hours a day every day, 35,000 people pour through the main border crossing into Kandahar. Families and burqa-clad women stream from Pakistan to Afghanistan, gingerly bridging the divide in seconds. Border guards do a quick pat down, and random searches of bags, but mostly the stream continues uninterrupted, pacing through metal detectors that do not beep or produce any sounds.
The first step in preventing the Taliban from organizing in Pakistan is to impede their mobility to and from Afghanistan. In an effort to bring more military muscle to the border, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to a breakthrough deal last week. Under the agreement, Afghanistan and Pakistan's military forces - with participation from NATO troops - will conduct simultaneous patrols of the 1,500-mile border, and may also begin using more high-tech equipment to communicate with one another. Hopefully the new agreement and participation of NATO forces will put an end to this major security risk.
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