CROSS-BORDER CALL FOR HELP -- KURRAM AGENCY PASHTUNS AND THEIR AFGHAN BROTHERS SEEK ASSISTANCE FROM THE AMBASSADOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L KABUL 003096

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM
STATE PASS USAID FOR ASIA/SCAA
NSC FOR WOOD
OSD FOR WILKES
CENTCOM FOR CG CSTC-A, CG CJTF-101 POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2013
TAGS: PGOV, PINR, PREL, PTER, AF, PK
SUBJECT: CROSS-BORDER CALL FOR HELP -- KURRAM AGENCY
PASHTUNS AND THEIR AFGHAN BROTHERS SEEK ASSISTANCE FROM THE
AMBASSADOR

Classified By: Charge Christopher Dell for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. (C) Summary: A Pashtun group, including two Senators
and four tribal elders from Paktya and Khost Provinces in
Afghanistan and 12 tribesmen from the Kurram agency in
Pakistan, met with the Ambassador on November 24 to seek U.S.
assistance. The bulk of the meeting was taken up with the
Kurram agency tribesmen,s pleas for support in their ongoing
dispute with local Pashtun Shi'a. They also requested
humanitarian assistance for impoverished Pashtuns around
Miram Shah to help them resist Taliban financial overtures.
The two Senators and Afghan tribal elders offered strong
support for their fellow Sunni Pashtun but also lodged
appeals of their own for the speeding up of U.S.
constructions projects, the avoidance of lethal errors by
U.S. forces and an end to those forces, assault on and entry
into Afghan homes. The Ambassador urged all his guests to do
their part to deprive insurgents of safehavens, underscored
the extent of U.S. assistance going to both countries and
committed to passing on to Embassy Islamabad word of his
guests, concerns about developments in the Kurram agency.
The meeting pointed up once again the artificiality of the
border for those living along it, the interconnectedness of
developments on both sides of it and the continuing need for
us to look holistically at our own strategies for engagement
in these sensitive areas. End Summary


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A local conflict in the FATA makes itself felt on the Afghan
side of the border
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2. (SBU) The Ambassador met with a group of Afghan Senators
and Afghani and Pakistani tribal elders on November 24 to
discuss Pashtun issues on both sides of the border. The
meeting was part of a program put together by some leading
political figures from Paktya and Khost provinces on behalf
of some tribal leaders from Kurram agency just across the
border in Pakistan. At least three Afghan Senators were
involved in the visit, including Upper House members Haji
Wakil Laiq, Bakhtar Aminzai and Mirbat Khan Mangal. Two of
the senators, along with some elders from their
constituencies, accompanied their dozen &brother8 Pashtuns
from across the Durrand Line. The Pakistani tribesmen appear
to have been from a group of Pashtuns who crossed over into
Afghanistan as a result of a local conflict around
Parachinar. They had already met with Afghan Minister of
Border and Tribal Affairs Barahawi and were seeking a session
with President Karzai.

3. (C) According to Haji Gulakhan, a Kurram Agency elder
from the Mangal tribe, decades-old hostility between Shi'a
and Sunni Pashtuns in the Kurram agency has boiled over into
open conflict during the last 14 months (Afghan Senator Layiq
insisted this development was politically driven). Gulakhan
claimed there have been 1000 killed and another 2700 wounded,
with some 500 Pashtun Sunni families displaced. He noted
that the Pakistani government intervened to stage a peace
jirga that resulted in a four-point peace accord. This
provided for an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of killed
and captured, distribution of food and medical supplies to
affected areas and reconstruction work. Gulakhan alleged
that the Shi'a had refused to comply with the latter two
provisions. As a direct consequence, he said, 22 Pashtun
Sunni villages near the border were left isolated and
surrounded, unable to gain access to food and medicine. He
asked for U.S. help, both in terms of humanitarian assistance
and through applying pressure on the Shi'a to reopen the
villages, access to the outside (he suggested U.S. personnel
in Afghanistan near the border have access to these Shi,a).


Outside interference?
--------------


4. (C) The Kurram group claimed Iran has long been


supporting their Shi'a neighbors. Specifically, one Abed
Hussein, who they said has traveled from Islamabad to Tehran
via Karachi, is receiving Iranian funding and weapons for his
fighters. His group, they suggested, maintains training
camps in Zeran, Arkhi and Shingak, this last only 5
kilometers from Parachinar. They also alleged that the
Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) has
encouraged cooperation between these Shi'a and the Taliban,
purportedly using the two groups, shared hatred of the U.S.
to bring them together. Asked by the Ambassador about a
reported flow of Pashtun Sunni fighters from Afghanistan into
Kurram to counter the Shi,a, all present at the meeting
shook their heads in disagreement when the question was
translated. Senator Laiq countered with the assertion that,
as a devastated, war-torn country, Afghanistan is hardly in a
position to export fighters.

Assistance requests
--------------

5. (SBU) The Kurram tribesmen also suggested the U.S.
provide humanitarian assistance to other Sunni Pashtuns in
the area, including around Miram Shah and Mir Ali. They
argued that their fellow tribesmen were so impoverished that
they provided accommodation to Taliban in their homes for
payment and remained on the premises even though they realize
they risk being killed along with the insurgents in a U.S.
attack. Assistance, they claimed, could break the link and
turn these people into active opponents of the Taliban.

6. (SBU) The Afghan Senators and tribesmen gave strong
backing to their &brothers'8 requests and put forward some
of their own. Senator Layiq had high praise for U.S.
construction projects in his home province of Paktya but
asked that they be implemented more quickly. A prominent
Paktya elder called for the avoidance by coalition forces of
civilian casualties, citing the recent killing of some
security guards in the Khon-Khowr area. Senator Mangal from
Khost gave a stiff warning against international forces,
giving credence to false reports from informers and called
for greater consultation with genuine tribal elders. Another
Khost elder denounced the purported killing of a boy by
coalition forces in front of his parents as well as the
detention at FOB Salerno of a villager and several of his
relatives visiting from their jobs in the UAE -- he claimed
the villager had been released from a previous round of
detention only one week earlier.

7. (U) The Ambassador expressed regret for any accidental
killings, questioned some of the incidents cited but
requested details so the claims might be appropriately
investigated. He noted Afghanistan and Pakistan,s positions
as two of the top four U.S. aid recipients in the world but
at the same time indicated his inability to channel
assistance across the border. He promised, however, to pass
along to Embassy Islamabad the needs and concerns laid out by
the elders from the Kurram agency. He acknowledged the
common commitment of both countries, leaders to defeat
extremists but also stressed the important job local
residents have in withholding help to insurgents.

8. (C) Comment: The cross-border nature of this meeting made
it a first for us, at least in our collective memory, and
underscores how little relevance the border has for those
living along it. That made it all the more challenging to
explain the proper address for assistance requests like those
of the Kurram agency tribesman. At the same time, it may be
worth considering further whether there are any acceptable
avenues for channeling at least some limited help to the FATA
via implementors based out of Afghanistan. We understand,
for example, that the ICRC does just this. At a minimum, our
common insight into the close linkages between southeastern
Afghanistan and the FATA recalls the importance of us all
taking a holistic approach to our assistance and engagement
strategies in these highly sensitive areas.
DELL