PESHAWAR, March 7: The government has withdrawn the special number-plate facility for vehicles used by Afghan commanders considered close to Pakistan, official sources said.

"The government has imposed a ban on all vehicles carrying AF (Afghanistan) number-plates," a senior traffic police official told Dawn. The sources said the government had cancelled these number-plates following reports that some Afghan commanders, in connivance with local officials, were misusing the facility.

"The government received reports that the facility was being misused so it had to cancel the AF number-plates," the sources maintained. They said an intelligence agency had recently asked the traffic police to impound vehicles with the AF number-plates.

The action was necessitated after complaints that some of the Afghan commanders were involved in smuggling of luxury vehicles from Afghanistan. The sources said these Afghan commanders brought luxury vehicles from Afghanistan without paying any taxes by misusing the facility of AF number-plates.

The government conducted an inquiry when an influential Afghan commander affiliated with the Ittehad-i-Islami Afghanistan of Prof Abdur Rab Rasool Sayyaf was accused of bringing vehicles from Afghanistan without paying customs duty, the sources said.

"The Afghan commanders were found bringing limousines from Afghanistan, which they later sold in the local market," an official said. From the beginning of the Afghan war the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had been allotting AF number-plates to Afghan commanders considered loyal to Pakistan.

The sources said after cancelling the AF number-plates, the authorities were introducing a new system to avoid the misuse of the facility. Under the new arrangement, number-plates are being issued by a single entity in place of the agency's regional headquarters.

In a related development, the sources said, the ministry for state and frontier regions (Safron) had stopped issuing export permits for food and other items to Afghanistan. The arrangement was disbanded after the federal government adopted an open trade policy for Afghanistan, allowing trade of all items through land route.