Israel’s military strikes on Iran and now Tehran’s knee-jerk expulsion of Afghan residents have created a catastrophic domino effect that threatens to unravel the Taliban’s fragile governance in Afghanistan, according to the number of people being forced across the border in recent days.

The Islamic Republic, previously reluctantly hosting an estimated 3.8mn displaced Afghans – the largest refugee population globally – has shifted from decades of relative tolerance to aggressive deportation policies in a matter of weeks. This accelerated reversal stems partly from Israel’s June 2025 strikes, which exacerbated Iran’s economic strain and fuelled the scapegoating of Afghans.

Following the Israeli strikes across Iran, Tehran is now enforcing draconian residency rules on the millions of Afghans residing in the country. Census documents granting minimal protection to 2mn Afghans were revoked in early 2025, and services like healthcare, education and property transactions are denied to undocumented migrants. The Interior Ministry explicitly ordered that only six narrow categories of Afghans may remain – primarily those with formal employment ties or political status – while all others "must leave the country."

Iran’s crackdown has triggered a humanitarian tsunami. So far, 88,000 Afghans were deported in a single week in June 2025, with border crossings such as Islam Qala processing 10,000 returnees daily. This is a prelude to the looming expulsion of up to 4mn undocumented Afghans by July 6, dwarfing the 1.3mn already deported from Pakistan. Returnees arrive destitute; Iranian authorities confiscate their savings and belongings during deportation, while Taliban officials lack even basic reception infrastructure.

The economic toll on Afghanistan – already reeling from a 30% GDP contraction since 2021 – is unsustainable. The regime cannot feed its current population, let alone absorb millions of penniless returnees. Compounding this, Iran’s abrupt termination of education for Afghan children with census documents has barred over 610,000 students from schools, including girls who fled the Taliban’s own education bans. This deliberate severing of lifelines deepens despair among families who migrated specifically for schooling or safety.

The Taliban’s legitimacy, already eroded by international isolation and internal fragmentation, faces three existential pressures from this crisis. First, the demographic deluge overwhelms its skeletal governance. With no capacity to provide food, water or shelter at border crossings, scenes of starvation and disease will shatter the regime’s religious pretensions. Secondly, security fractures as former soldiers, police and officials – targeted by the Taliban in 2021 – are forcibly returned. These groups form a natural recruitment pool for armed resistance movements like the Afghanistan Freedom Front, which warns of "chaos and instability." Thirdly, Iran’s charge that Afghans collaborated with Israel during the strikes has subjected returnees to Taliban suspicion, turning them into internal enemies.

Israel’s role in this chain reaction cannot be understated. The strikes on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure from June 12-24, 2025, inflicted tens of billions in damages, deepening Tehran’s economic crisis. The Islamic Republic responded by turning on the Afghan population following the sheer number of arrests of Afghans during the 12-day war with Israel. Within days of the ceasefire, Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad explicitly linked deportations to alleged Afghan "collaboration with Israel," following reports of Israel paying Afghans a few thousand dollars each to take part in the assault, Iran claims.

The Taliban now confronts an impossible equation: Iran’s expulsions – propelled by Israeli-inflicted wounds – will flood Afghanistan with 2-4mn traumatised citizens while the regime lacks resources to support 10% of that number. Many of those returning were not even born in Afghanistan and have resided in Iran for at least two generations, when the Taliban controlled Kabul before the US invasion of the country in 2001. 

As families starve in border camps and former officials potentially regroup for insurgency, the Taliban’s coercive control will disintegrate. The International Organisation for Migration’s warnings of "coercive regimes of forced returns" underscore a regional race to the bottom, with Pakistan, Turkey and Tajikistan accelerating deportations. Afghanistan’s implosion, once unthinkable, now appears inevitable within months – a grim testament to how Israel’s beef with Iran is now a ticking time bomb for the entirety of west, south and central Asia. Where the dominoes fall is anyone’s guess, but the unrecognised government in Kabul, still requesting its funds to be unfrozen, now faces the biggest challege of its short tenure.