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?

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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

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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