FATA: NEW ROUND OF KURRAM SECTARIAN VIOLENCE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 ISLAMABAD 001671

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/22/2019
TAGS: PREF EAID PGOV MOPS PK
SUBJECT: FATA: NEW ROUND OF KURRAM SECTARIAN VIOLENCE
REVEALS INTRA-SECT DYNAMICS OF SUNNIS AND SHI'A

REF: A. ISLAMABAD 1464

B. KABUL 1733

C. PESHAWAR 11

D. 08 PESHAWAR 477

E. 07 PESHAWAR 248

Classified By: Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate Peshawar,
Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d).


1. (C) Summary: The breakdown in Sunni-Shi'a relations in
Kurram Agency and ensuing violence over the past three weeks
has cost 120 lives and mobilized the local communities on a
scale not seen for months. After the intervention of the
Frontier Corps and a jirga drawn from local Sunnis and Shi'a
and outside mediators, the fighting has died down, but the
underlying issues remain unresolved. Sunni militants and
Shi'a extremists appear to be gaining strength at the expense
of traditional leaders on their respective sides, and the
overstretched Pakistani government's unwillingness (and
probably inability) to stage a ground operation and clear out
the militants is alienating the Shi'a community. The
presence of outside actors and dynamics within each community
will ensure a continuing - and potentially intensifying -
sectarian struggle for the foreseeable future. End summary.

Kurram: Two Years of Episodic War
--------------


2. (SBU) Kurram is the most diverse of the Federally
Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA),with six major tribes
and a population split between Sunnis and Shi'a. The Shi'a
dominate Upper Kurram, while Sunnis dominate Central Kurram
and control much of Lower Kurram. Among the Shi'a, the Turi
tribe is most populous and has generally played a leading
role, while the Parachamkani is the largest of the Sunni
tribes and the Bangash, who live in close proximity to the
Turi, have also played a prominent role among the Sunnis of
Kurram. Historically, the two communities have coexisted
uneasily, with brief episodes of sectarian violence occurring
approximately once each decade.


3. (C) Two years of episodic clashes between the Sunnis
and Shi'a in Kurram began with an intense episode of
sectarian violence in Parachinar over several days in April

2007. In November of that year, more extensive rioting led
to a full breakdown of inter-communal relations and a
substantial exchange of populations as Sunnis fled Parachinar
and other parts of Upper Kurram and Shi'a fled
Sunni-dominated parts of Lower Kurram (ref E). The displaced
populations in both areas became increasingly supportive of
militants. Displaced Upper Kurram Sunnis in particular,
whether living in Sunni parts of Kurram or further afield in
Hangu or even Peshawar, have according to both our Sunni and
Shi'a contacts provided much of the financial and manpower
backing for Sunni tribal militias and militant groups.


4. (C) From November 2007, the primary road that runs
through Kurram Agency from Thall to Parachinar and on to
Paktiya province in Afghanistan was closed to each side by
the other. This closure, according to a Shi'a contact who
formerly represented Kurram in the National Assembly, created
some inconvenience for militants linked to the North
Waziristan-based Haqqani network, who had previously been
able to transit the area in small groups and move more
quickly and easily toward Kabul than is currently possible.
For this and other reasons, Utmanzai Wazir militants
affiliated with Hafiz Gul Bahadur and fighters loyal to
Baitullah Mehsud began to move into Sunni areas of Kurram
beginning in early 2008; in a round of fighting in
August-September, however, the Kurram Sunni/Waziri forces
experienced a series of defeats by the Shi'a culminating in
the capture and destruction of the Sunni militant stronghold
of Baghzai in Lower Kurram (ref D). An agreement reached
between the two sides in October 2008 had held a general
peace (aside from regular road blockages and tit-for-tat
kidnappings and killings) until June 2009.


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Violence Flares Again in June
--------------


5. (C) According to contacts on both sides of the
conflict, the most recent round of violence was touched off
by the construction of &bunker8 fortifications by Sunnis
and Shi'a on opposite sides of the Thall-Parachinar road near
the Shi'a-majority village of Balish Khel and northwest of
Sadda, the primary Sunni town in Lower Kurram. Sunni and
Shi'a contacts differ on the question of which side first
began such construction, but agree that a June 16 Sunni raid
on Shi'as building the bunkers began the actual fighting.
During the raid, Sunnis captured a Shi'a man (or possibly his
body),and his mutilated corpse was publicly displayed in
Sadda on the following day.


6. (C) The raid corresponded with an intensifying
struggle for leadership within the Shi'a community in Kurram.
Over the past several years, a Shi'a cleric popularly known
as the "Pesh Imam," who leads a madrassa called the
Markez-i-Hussaini, has acted as the informal leader of a
council of leaders of the four principal Shi'a tribes in
Kurram, and as Sunni-Shi'a relations in Kurram deteriorated
from 2007, the council has provided a coordinating body for
the Shi'a tribes. Our contacts uniformly claim, however,
that the past two years has seen a slow erosion of this
council's authority and growing strength of more extreme
Shi'a organized around two militias named "Hizbullah" and
"Mahdi Militia" and deriving religious sanction from a Shi'a
cleric named Adil Hussain al-Hussaini. Like the Pesh Imam,
al-Hussaini comes from outside of the Kurram tribal system
(he is a Syed, though from a Kurram family),and according to
both Sunni and one Shi'a contacts, al-Hussaini's growing
popularity appears to have pushed the Pesh Imam into
increasingly intemperate rhetoric and decision-making, some
of which escalated Muharram-related Sunni-Shi'a fighting in
January 2009 (ref C).


7. (C) In February 2009, according to our Shi'a contacts,
the Pesh Imam departed Kurram for his hometown of Gilgit (in
Pakistan's Northern Areas). His ostensible purpose of travel
was to care for his ill father. However, his departure
created rumors within the Shi'a community that he had
permanently fled Kurram. Turi and other tribal elders asked
that he return, which he did in May 2009. The period of
absence (and the perception of flight) had however
considerably further strengthened al-Hussaini's hand at the
expense of the Pesh Namaz. When the body of the Shi'a man (a
relative of al-Hussaini) was displayed in Sadda on July 17,
the Pesh Imam and the elders in the Markez-i-Hussaini did not
resist the responding escalation of the conflict by
al-Hussaini's followers.

Enter a Peace Jirga and the FC, Slowly
--------------


8. (SBU) Aside from one-off rocket attacks by Sunnis
militants on Parachinar and later by Shi'a militants on
Sadda, the ensuing fighting over June 17-July 1 appears to
have been primarily concentrated in the same area of Lower
Kurram around Balish Khel where it had begun. Despite this
limitation in scope, the fighting was extensive, killing 120
people, wounding scores more, and causing the flight of the
inhabitants of approximately ten villages in the vicinity of
the fighting. The losses seem to have been roughly equally
distributed between Sunnis and Shi'a, and no substantial
territorial gains were made during the course of the fighting
by either side.


9. (C) Jirga activity to mediate the conflict, which began
almost immediately after the start of serious hostilities,
initially did not produce results. Even before fighting
broke out, an initial jirga drawn from Kurram's Sunni and
Shi'a tribal leaders had been meeting in Peshawar and
Islamabad to try to press for a long-term, government-secured
solution to the growing inter-sectarian tensions. As
casualties mounted from fighting, the joint jirga drew in

ISLAMABAD 00001671 003 OF 004


respected Sunni tribal figures from Khyber and Mohmand
agencies, Shi'a tribal figures from Orakzai agency, and the
nazim (mayor) of neighboring Hangu district to mediate. The
mediators met in Central Kurram over several days on the week
of June 22 with the Ahl-i-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat, an organization
of traditional (i.e., non-Salafi) Sunni clerics that seems to
have served a mediating function among the Sunni tribal
elders of Kurram similar to that provided by the
Markez-i-Hussaini among the Shi'a. The talks produced no
result; our Shi'a contacts speculate that this was because
the fighters on the Sunni side are dominated by militants
rather than the tribal elites represented among
Ahl-i-Sunnat-wal-Jamaat, who therefore were not empowered to
make the concessions necessary to achieve peace.


10. (C) Fighting continued to escalate over the remainder of
the week of June 22 and the beginning of the week of June 29.
At this point, according to one Shi'a tribal elder and
politician who was involved in the jirga, the Shi'a members
of the jirga approached Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP)
Governor Owais Ghani (whose remit includes authority over the
FATA) to request a redeployment of Frontier Corps wings into
Kurram and a land operation to separate the two sides. Ghani
demurred, citing "more pressing" commitments elsewhere and
implying that the Shi'a would have to take care of things
themselves.


11. (C) By this time, however, the jirga was beginning to
bear fruit, a fact which a Sunni contact attributed to
"battle fatigue" but a Shi'a contact speculated might have
been more a result of a diversion of Utmanzai Waziri
militants to North Waziristan with the beginning of
hostilities there (ref A). A ceasefire was finalized on July

1. As of July 3, FC units (which had been in Kurram but had
previously stood aside from the fighting) had occupied the
fortifications along the Thall-Parachinar road in the Balish
Khel area over which much of the previous weeks' conflict had
been waged. On July 6, an exchange of bodies was carried out
between the Sunni and Shi'a sides, and as of July 8, our
contacts were confident that reciprocal compensation money
and surety money ("insurance" that would be forfeited by one
or the other side if they resume hostilities) would soon be
paid, marking a formal end to this period of hostilities.

Comment: Truce but No Peace
--------------


12. (C) None of our contacts (who include current and former
Sunni and Shi'a National Assembly members from Kurram, a
prominent Turi tribal elder, one of the outside mediators on
the peace jirga, and the former Assistant Political Agent for
Parachinar) believe that this truce will resolve any of the
issues underlying the spasm of sectarian conflict that broke
out over June 16-July 1. As may be evidenced by the early
failure of the peace jirga, the traditional tribal leadership
appears to have entirely lost control of the Sunni side of
the conflict to militants, many of whom are not from Kurram.
(Note: This development has diminished our ability to report
on Sunni intra-sect dynamics with the same level of insight
we can bring to the Shi'a.) The traditional Shi'a leaders,
fearful of the Sunnis and of the prospect of losing influence
to extremists within their own community, are taking an
increasingly hard line. In the absence of a fundamental
change in the dynamics of the situation, the long-term trend
line for the conflict would seem to be in the direction of
more frequent and/or more intense conflict.


13. (S) The Frontier Corps, which has operational control
over Kurram Agency, is overstretched, and the Pakistani
government is unlikely to be able to forcibly reimpose its
writ on Lower Kurram for the foreseeable future. The absence
of government action, however, has left the Shi'a feeling
increasingly isolated and distrustful of the government; on
several occasions, this has led to clashes with or
kidnappings of FC elements by Shi'a militias. While they
deny to us that they are receiving support from Iran, the
Shi'a leaders make no apologies for requesting material

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support from the United States, and from the government of
Afghanistan or elements within it. One Shi'a contact
confirmed that he had indeed received arms from sources in
Afghanistan, and another claimed that he had been offered
arms by an officer in the Afghan National Army on condition
that the Shi'a carry out attacks on targets selected by the
Afghan government. The influx of outside influences into
Kurram has rendered traditional means of dispute resolution
such as the jirga increasingly ineffective in coping with the
deteriorating relations between Kurram's Shi'a and Sunni
communities.
PATTERSON