Khar(Pakistan): Pakistan began deporting Afghan migrants from an insurgency-wracked tribal area today after alleging they have militant links.

Officials have said they plan to deport all of the estimated 50,000 Afghans living and working illegally in the Bajur area.

Bajur is the site of a major offensive by Pakistan's military against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, many of whom officials say have crossed over from Afghanistan.

"The orders have been issued to the tribal police to push all of them (Afghans) out," said local government official Abdul Haseeb, saying their houses would be bulldozed to stop them returning.

Most of the Afghans in Bajur fled their homeland and entered the tribal areas during the 1980s and 1990s when their country was occupied by Russia and then suffered a bloody civil war.

Officials have previously said many of the Afghans were involved in the militancy gripping the region. Today, police in the town of Khar in Bajur agency arrested 25 Afghans and said they would soon be deported.

At least one protested his innocence. "What wrong have we done here except earning some bread for our children," said Juma Gul Khan, who was working at a sawmill.

The United Nation's refugee agency says there are currently more than one million Afghan refugees living in camps in Pakistan. The Afghans in Bajur were not believed to be living in camps.

The agency says on its Web site that a 2005 Pakistan government census suggested there were another 1.5 million Afghans living outside camps, some of whom may be refugees. Many were born in Pakistan.
Source : PTI