Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Sharbat Gula became the face of refugee plight when she was featured on the cover of 'National Geographic' as a child. Her struggles are far from over. USA TODAY NETWORK 
 
 Photographer Steve McCurry poses in front of photographs of the 'Afghan Girl' featured in the exhibit 'Steve McCurry. Overwhelmed by life' at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg, Germany, on June 27, 2013. (Photo: Ulrich Perrey, picture-alliance/dpa via AP Images) 
 
 National Geographic's iconic, green-eyed Afghan Girl was arrested Wednesday at her home in Peshawar, Pakistan, on charges she possessed a forged national identification card, authorities said. 
 
 Shahid Ilyas, an official of the Federal Investigation Agency's National Database Registration Authority, told AFP that Sharbat Gula was arrested following a two-year investigation and could face up to 14 years in prison. 
 
 Pakistan, and particularly the Peshawar area along the Afghan border, has been home to more than a million Afghans fleeing decades of war. Pakistan has been cracking down on fake national identification cards and has launched a verification program across the nation. 
 
 Sharbat Gulla, the iconic "Afghan Girl" whose photo appeared in "National Geographic" in 1985, waits for a court hearing in Peshawar, Pakistan. (Photo: Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency via AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 Gula was about 12 years old in 1984 when war photographer Steve McCurry shot her haunting portrait Afghan Girl, which appeared on the cover of the internationally renowned magazine's June 1985 edition. Gula's parents were killed in Russia's war with Afghanistan, and the young Gula walked with her grandmother and four siblings across the mountains to Pakistan's Nasir Bagh refugee camp. 
 
 The photo became a symbol of the plight of refugees. After the 9/11 terror attacks it resurfaced as a promotional tool in the Bush administration's effort to draw support for a war against the Taliban. 
 
 In 2002, McCurry tracked Gula down to a remote Afghan village, where she was married to a baker and had three daughters. A traditional Muslim, she was not allowed to meet men outside her family. The magazine said it was given permission to send a female associate producer to meet Gula and take another photo. 
 
 Photos: The Day in Pictures 
 
 The magazine used iris-scanning technology and face-recognition techniques to verify it was the same person in the 1984 photo. Her family finally granted permission for her to meet with McCurry, who said he recognized her immediately by her eyes. 
 
 "I don't think she was particularly interested in her personal fame," McCurry said after the 2002 meeting. "But she was pleased when we said she had come to be a symbol of the dignity and resilience of her people." 
 
 When Gula was arrested Wednesday, she had Pakistani and Afghan ID cards in her possession, and both ID cards have been seized, Ilyas told AFP. He said more than 60,000 fraudulent cards have been uncovered across Pakistan, and that eight officials so far have been charged with issuing ID cards to foreigners. 
 
 Pakistan has been pressuring refugees to leave, and has set a deadline for March. But Afghanistan remains a dangerous place — Taliban insurgents on Wednesday killed 26 Afghans abducted from the central province of Ghor. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2eLx5gp ||||| PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A Pakistani investigator says the police have arrested National Geographic's famed green-eyed 'Afghan Girl' for having a fake Pakistani identity card. 
 
 Shahid Ilyas from the Federal Investigation Agency, says the police arrested Sharbat Gulla during a raid on Wednesday at a home in Peshawar. 
 
 Gulla was an Afghan refugee girl when she gained international fame in 1984 after war photographer Steve McCurry's photograph of her, with piercing green eyes, was published on the cover of National Geographic. McCurry found her again in 2002, in Afghanistan. 
 
 Gulla surfaced again in Pakistan last year when authorities said she has a fake Pakistani ID card. 
 
 Ilyas says some officials were later fired for providing Gulla with the fake ID and that she has since been living in hiding to avoid arrest.
– Sharbat Gulla, better known as the iconic "Afghan Girl" who stared out of a 1985 National Geographic cover with her haunting green eyes, has been arrested. A Pakistan investigator says that Gulla was arrested during a raid Wednesday at a home in Peshawar, Pakistan, during which she was found to have a fake Pakistani identity card, the AP reports. Gulla, who was an Afghan refugee of about 12 years old when war photographer Steve McCurry photographed her in 1984 in a Pakistan refugee camp, has been the target of a two-year investigation, the investigator says. She could face as many as 14 years in prison. USA Today notes that Peshawar, along the Afghan border, has hosted more than a million Afghan refugees, but Pakistan has been cracking down on forged ID cards. When it emerged last year that Gulla allegedly had a fake card, the investigator says, she went into hiding and a few officials were fired for giving her the card. McCurry had actually tracked Gulla down in 2002, finding her living back in Afghanistan at the time with her husband and three daughters.