UPPER DIR BOMBING RESPONSE SHOWS EFFECTIVENESS AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PESHAWAR 000124 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 6/9/2019 TAGS: MOPS PTER PGOV PK SUBJECT: UPPER DIR BOMBING RESPONSE SHOWS EFFECTIVENESS AND LIMITATIONS OF LASHKARS REF: A) 08 Islamabad 3337 B) 08 Islamabad 3332 CLASSIFIED BY: Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate Peshawar, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The June 5 mass-casualty bombing of a mosque in Upper Dir and resulting June 7-9 punitive action by a tribal lashkar have highlighted the long-standing tension in Upper Dir district over militant activity there and its recent exacerbation by the military operations in neighboring Swat district. This recent unrest also provides an example of the effectiveness with which lashkars may be deployed if conditions are right. A comparison of this incident with other instances of lashkar formation, however, reveals that conditions are not often right. Lashkars have been most effective in areas with strong tribal systems in which the balance of forces clearly favors the tribes rather than the militants, or where they have backing from Pakistani security forces. In the Waziristans, targeted killings and intimidation have taken a severe toll on community leadership. Elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as well as much of the settled areas of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP),there has been a steady deterioration of tribal bonds. The limited purpose, duration, and operational space of a lashkar also work against viewing it as a long-term "hold" force for the FATA or parts of the NWFP. Lashkars are a narrowly focused and uncertain tool at best in countering militancy along Pakistan's northwestern border as we have seen in Bajaur and Kurram in fall 2008 (reftels). End summary. Mass-casualty Attack; Mass Armed Response -------------- ¶2. (C) During Friday prayers in the afternoon of June 5, a militant wearing an explosive vest detonated himself at the primary Sunni mosque in the village of Hayagai Sharqi in Upper Dir. The explosion and subsequent collapse of part of the building killed over forty and injured dozens more; many of those killed were children. According to Upper Dir resident and former NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan, seven of those killed were elders who had participated in a weeks-long jirga called in April to expel militants residing in villages in the area of Doog Darra and in the lashkar that was its enforcement mechanism. Upper Dir nazim (note: equivalent to a mayor) Saqibzada Tariqullah told us that the Hayagai villages are a center for this jirga and lashkar's leadership, particularly including influential anti-militant malik Mutabbar Khan, who survived the attack. ¶3. (SBU) The local reaction to the suicide attack was quick in coming. Over June 6, a lashkar formed (with the encouragement of the government, according to District Coordination Officer Atif-ur-Rehman) from hundreds of the armed residents of the villages around Hayagai Sharqi and some of the villages of Doog Darra. On June 7, it attacked several of the villages within Doog Darra known to house militants. Operating with arms and at least some tactical support from security forces (including aerial surveillance of militant positions and helicopter bombardment),the lashkar claimed to have burned 21 houses, destroyed a training camp, and killed over twenty militants, including two commanders. Fighting continued through June 8 and was still ongoing by June 9. District Police Officer Ejaz Ahmad said around 200 militants were trapped by the lashkar and were putting up stiff resistance. ¶4. (C) According to other Consulate contacts, unregistered Afghans have resided in Doog Darra for years. The area has therefore become a center for militants transiting the region, but the armed citizenry of the area and their hostility toward the militants had deterred significant militant operations in the region. FATA Secretariat Additional Chief Secretary Habibullah Khan, who has served in a number of positions in Malakand Division, told Peshawar PO that he feared militants fleeing Swat would use the high rugged mountain passes of Upper Dir as an escape route via Chitral into Afghanistan and possibly doubling back into Bajaur or Mohmand. The snow is melting, he said, making these passes more inviting. Lashkar Background -------------- PESHAWAR 00000124 002 OF 003 ¶5. (C) A lashkar is a tribal militia - a group of men from the community who join together on the decision of the tribal jirga (and at times a government representative such as the Political Agent or District Coordination Officer) to address a specific security issue. In addition to a limited purpose, the lashkar operates on a limited territorial basis along tribal and clan lines. The lashkar is supported by the community, which provides the group with weapons, food, vehicles, housing, etc. In the FATA, particularly Bajaur, since the fall of 2008, the GOP, specifically the Frontier Corps and the Interior Ministry, actively encouraged the formation of lashkars to supplement understaffed security forces and mobilize communities against militants. Upper Dir's Suitability for Lashkar Formation -------------- ¶6. (C) The strong and sustained action by the Upper Dir lashkar against militants in Upper Dir is an encouraging sign of local resistance against militant expansion, but it also illustrates some of the necessary preconditions for the effective use of lashkars. Upper Dir is an unusually rugged region, with poor infrastructure and poor central governmental control. As a result, Upper Dir has retained very strong tribal structures used to dealing with law-and-order problems on their own. Influential tribal elders appear to have opposed from the first the relatively small number of militants present. The ruggedness and backwardness of Upper Dir has made it a less-promising transit point between Afghanistan and Swat than Lower Dir had been (until the current military operation there). The area's poverty and lack of resources has also made it a poor source of revenue for militants. As a result of these and perhaps other factors, it has never attracted a large number of militants to the area. ¶7. (C) Those militants who were present in Upper Dir appear to have come primarily from outside. Like the Afghans among whom they moved, they were not part of the community and appear to have had serious difficulty in attracting locals, bound strongly to their respective clans, to their ranks. Their activities, such as the early May kidnapping of sixteen locally-raised Levies (a local policing force) and the June 6 suicide bombing at the mosque, directly threatened local equities. Finally, there appears to have been significant government engagement both in the formation of the jirga and lashkar and in its deployment on a large scale. ¶8. (C) Similar conditions have applied to the formation of previous effective lashkars. The lashkar raised from the Salarzai tribe of Bajaur agency in 2008, which repeatedly engaged local militants in late 2008, took advantage of a strong tribal structure, a predominantly rural and armed population, and the close proximity of a supporting Frontier Corps (FC) presence. While the Salarzai engaged a stronger militant element than the Upper Dir lashkar has yet seen, that militant element in Bajaur was primarily based in the rival Mahmoond tribe and therefore never successfully recruited in Salarzai areas. Others of the more effective lashkars have been formed among homogeneous, indigenously-led, and government-supported locals in tribe-dominated regions such as the heavily feud-ridden southern outskirts of Peshawar city, various tribal territories in Khyber agency, and the Kohistani regions of Upper Swat. ¶9. (C) Even in such favorable circumstances, the lashkars and the tribal systems underlying them have shown themselves to be highly vulnerable to militant action against tribal leaders. A case in point is the Orakzai agency where tribal hostility to militants had made Orakzai one of the most secure of the agencies. When a suicide attack on a jirga in early October 2008 killed over 100 elders, tribal resistance to militants appears to have evaporated entirely, allowing Tehrik-i-Taliban lieutenant Hakimullah Mehsud to quickly take effective control of most of the agency without a fight. PESHAWAR 00000124 003 OF 003 ¶10. (C) The June 6 suicide attack on the Upper Dir mosque seems to have been an attempt to create a similar leadership vacuum that militants could exploit. Upper Dir nazim Tariqullah told us that the bomber had asked to speak with Mutabbar Khan and then detonated himself before entering the mosque, when challenged to produce his identification card. The bomber might otherwise have expected to kill a greater number of elders, including Mutabbar Khan, thereby hamstringing any local reaction to the attack. If militants fleeing Swat continue to pass through or rest in Upper Dir, further such attacks may be coming. It is difficult to predict whether and how much the Upper Dir social structure will be able to stand firm against such violence. Comment: Lashkars Least Effective Where Most Needed -------------- -------------- ¶11. (C) The events of the past few days in Upper Dir serve as a reminder that under the right conditions, within a defined area of local interest, and during the short term, local tribal structures and lashkars can be effectively used by the Pakistani government to counter militant activity where the government does not have the forces to do so. In much of the FATA and the NWFP, however, some or all of these conditions do not apply. This is particularly the case in the areas of ongoing and upcoming operations for the Pakistani government. The limited purpose, duration, and operational space of a lashkar also work against viewing it as a long-term "hold" force for the FATA or parts of the NWFP. ¶12. (C) In North and South Waziristan, where an armed population and strong and homogeneous tribal structures once existed, the tribal structures have been gutted by the targeted assassination of nearly 300 tribal elders over the past few years and the overwhelming strength of the various militant warlords. Frontier Corps Commander General Tariq Khan explored the possibility of raising a lashkar in South Waziristan last fall and met with failure; people were simply too afraid. ¶13. (C) In Bajaur, where the FC is gearing up for another operation, lashkars have had mixed success. The recently replaced Bajaur Political Agent (PA) had been unable to get any traction in the Mahmoond tribal areas in building up local tribal authorities and lashkars degraded by months of domination by militants. The PA of Mohmand agency has complained of the same thing in his agency's Safi tribal areas, where militant activity had been the strongest prior to the FC operation there earlier this year. ¶14. (C) In Swat, none of the necessary conditions for effective lashkar formation apply, despite calls by some local leaders such as Afzal Khan Lala that the local populace be armed against the militants. Swatis in general are unused to participating in combat, heavily de-tribalized, alienated from the local landowners who would make the most obvious leaders, traumatized by living under effective militant control for two years, and distrustful of the government and the armed forces after two previous failed campaigns against the militants. If the Pakistani government wants to hold any of these areas after it has finished clearing them, it will have to be prepared to commit its forces for the long term. TRACY