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. ISLAMABAD 00001671 002 OF 004 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 ISLAMABAD 00001671 004 OF 004 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