KOHAT, Sept 8: Security agencies have warned the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) of an Al Qaeda threat and advised all foreigners to take extreme caution while travelling between Kohat and the tribal areas of Kurram and Orakzai, Dawn has learnt.
Caution has also been advised during the process of Afghan refugees' registration in the settled districts of Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. Following last week's rocket attacks in Bannu district, the IOM had decided to suspend its operations in the area, but that decision has now been reversed. However, a final decision about registering refugees and holding polls in Dera Ismail Khan, which borders the troubled South Waziristan Agency, is yet to be taken.
For the time being, a plan is being worked out to register refugees living in the whole region - Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Kurram and Orakzai Agencies and the frontier regions -, the IOM chief security responsible for smooth polling in these areas, Capt (retd) Sarfraz Khattak, said.
Similarly, police had advised all foreigners working for IOM in the area to hire trained security guards for themselves and change their movement plans on a daily basis to avoid any untoward incident.
Special care has been advised in the settled areas instead of the tribal areas because, as a result of continuing operations in South and North Waziristan and along the western borders by allied troops, the Al Qaeda and Taleban remnants were on the run and have taken refuge in cities.
Officials fear that foreigners travelling in cities close to the tribal areas might become an easy prey for terrorists. But despite all these threats, the IOM appears to be determined to complete the process of registering Afghan refugees and hold polling in the refugee camps to make the first-ever presidential elections in Afghanistan, scheduled for October 9, a success.
The IOM officials hoped that a large number of refugees would turn up for the polling and described the response, especially that of Kurram Agency people, as overwhelming.
There was a strong perception among the IOM staff that as majority of refugees in the NWFP were Pukhtoons they would vote for President Hamid Karzai. They said that except for North and South Waziristan, the situation in the other two tribal areas in southern NWFP was relatively good.
Mr Sarfraz said that roughly 300,000 to 400,000 refugees would be enlisted for polling in these areas. But these figures were not final because they were based on the old lists available with the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees.
For example, in Ghiljo area of the Orakzai agency, they were told that there were 4,000 refugees but when they visited the camp they found less than 3,000. They also found some of the camps totally empty.
Similarly, constant movements of refugees were going on across the border and therefore it could not be said with surety how many would be present in the camps on the day of polling.
He said that as far as the security of the IOM staff in the tribal areas was concerned, they were in constant touch with administrators who had called meetings of area elders to take them into confidence and pave the way for peaceful registration and polling.