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Pakistan Effectively Shuts the Key Crossing into Afghanistan to Truck Drivers

FILE- Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
FILE- Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
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Pakistan Effectively Shuts the Key Crossing into Afghanistan to Truck Drivers

FILE- Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
FILE- Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Pakistan effectively closed a key northwestern border crossing with Afghanistan to truck drivers on Saturday, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said.
Noor Mohammad Hanif, director of Information and Culture department in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province said that officials at the Torkham began asking for passports and visas from Afghan drivers, The Associated Press said.
Truckers have for years been able to pass the border without documents so they generally do not have them.
Hanif said that, in response, Afghanistan is now asking Pakistani drivers for passports and visas.
In a separate statement, the Nangarhar governor’s office said that officials from both sides are in talks to solve the problem, and a “decision will be made soon,” it added.
The Torkham border crossing has been closed a number of times in recent months, including in September when it was shut for nine days due to clashes between border forces.
On Saturday, dozens of trucks carrying perishable items, including vegetables and fruits, waited on each side of the border for the reopening of the crossing, which is a vital commercial artery and a trade route to Central Asian countries for Pakistan.
Pakistan is concerned about the presence in Afghanistan of the Pakistani Taliban, which is a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has said many Pakistani Taliban leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and have been emboldened to carry out more attacks on security forces in Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban government insists it does not allow the Pakistani Taliban to use its soil to launch attacks in Pakistan.
This comes just days after one of Pakistan’s most senior politicians, Fazlur Rehman, visited Kabul in an attempt to reduce lingering tensions between the two countries.
Rehman was the first senior Pakistani politician to visit Kabul since the Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO troops withdrew from the country after 20 years of war.
Tensions also exist around Pakistan’s ongoing expulsion of Afghans.
Pakistan has deported more than half a million Afghans without valid papers in recent months. Pakistan has long hosted about 1.7 million Afghans, most of whom fled during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. More than half a million fled Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power.

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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)

The Category 4 Hurricane Milton was expected to grow larger on Tuesday as it threatened Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

The densely populated west coast of Florida, still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, braced for landfall on Wednesday.

The US National Hurricane Center projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people and where some evacuees rushed to dispose of mounds of debris left behind by Helene on their way out of town.

With maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph), Milton was downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Center's latest advisory early on Tuesday.

While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida, according to the hurricane center. That means catastrophic damage will occur, including power outages expected to last days.

Fed by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the Hurricane Center said, as it surged from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Its path from west to east was also unusual, as Gulf hurricanes typically form in the Caribbean Sea and make landfall after traveling west and turning north.

"It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the western coast of Florida," said Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University. "This has big implications since the track of the storm plays a role in determining where the storm surge will be the largest."

The Hurricane Center forecast storm surges of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) along a stretch of coastline north and south of Tampa Bay.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said Milton was expected to grow in size before making landfall on Wednesday, putting hundreds of miles of coastline within the storm surge danger zone.

Milton was likely to remain a hurricane for its entire journey across the Florida peninsula, Rhome told a Monday news briefing.

As of 10 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was 65 miles (105 km) north-northeast of Progreso, a Mexican port near the Yucatan state capital of Merida, and 585 miles (840 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east at nine mph (15 kph).

Milton was expected to pound the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula in the early hours of Tuesday.

The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, several Maya ruins popular with tourists and the port of Progreso.

In Florida, counties along the western coast ordered people in low-lying areas to take shelter on higher ground.

Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, said it ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people. Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones. At least six other coastal counties ordered evacuations including Hillsborough County, which includes the city of Tampa.

With one final day for people to evacuate on Tuesday, local officials raised concerns of traffic jams and long lines at gas stations.

Relief efforts remain ongoing throughout much of the US Southeast in the wake of Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.