NWFP: TWO WEEKS AFTER SWAT'S OPERATION DECLARED OVER,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PESHAWAR 000158

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 8/3/2019
TAGS: PREF EAID MOPS PTER PK
SUBJECT: NWFP: TWO WEEKS AFTER SWAT'S OPERATION DECLARED OVER,
SECURITY VARIES IN "TWO SWATS

REF: ISLAMABAD 1731

CLASSIFIED BY: Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate
Peshawar, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (d)

1. (C) Summary: Two weeks after the government of Pakistan
declared the end of its military operation in Swat and invited
the return of internally displaced Swatis, the picture of
security in Swat is mixed. Around half of Swat's IDPs have
returned, but the distribution of the returns is skewed toward
Lower Swat. South and west of Mingora, Swat's largest city,
returns by formerly displaced residents are close to complete,
security is relaxed, and life seems to be returning to normal.
Around Mingora, a heavy military presence and, until recently,
long curfews have helped ensure a lack of militant activity.
North and east of Mingora, army operations and militant attacks
continue, particularly in the areas of Matta and Kabal. The
continued insecurity in central Swat has delayed IDP returns and
created a political vacuum that will affect both of the "two
Swats." End Summary.

IDPs Returning
--------------


2. (C) On July 8, the government of Pakistan declared that
Operation Rah-e-Rast, its name for its two-month-long military
campaign against militants in Swat, was completed. On July 13,
the government began assisted returns for Swat residents into
the district. According to the Emergency Response Unit (ERU),
as of July 28 approximately 77,558 displaced Swati families have
returned to Swat, approximately half of the total number of
verified registered IDPs from Swat. This overall positive
trend, however, masks significant variations between regions of
Swat.

Lower Swat Coming Back
--------------


3. (C) USG assessments, press reports, and post contacts all
present a consistent picture of "two Swats." In Lower Swat, to
the south and west of Mingora, population has generally returned
and markets are functioning. An American-staffed USAID/OFDA
team which traveled through Lower Swat to Mingora on July 16,
shortly after the operation's end was announced, found limited
damage (other than to certain government buildings and certain
houses of Taliban supporters) and relaxed security, and
estimated that 20-40 percent of the region's population had
already returned. More recent assessments by Post contacts in
Lower Swat estimate that virtually all of the population of the
towns in Lower Swat have returned, although the situation in
rural areas is not entirely clear.

Mingora Safe Under Heavy Military Presence
--------------


4. (C) In Mingora and nearby Saidu Sharif (the district
headquarters),Post contacts estimate that approximately 75
percent of residents have returned. Strict military control of
the city and surrounding urban area, however, has until very
recently inhibited the movement of Mingora's inhabitants and
dampened commerce. Curfew began to be lifted for 10 hours each
day only within the past week, and the Pakistani army within the
past few days has begun to take down some of their checkpoints
that had previously dotted key intersections in the city,
creating serious traffic jams. The city is filled to
overcrowding with returning IDPs - both those originally from
Mingora and a very large number of those from further north and
east, who have not been able to return to their home areas
because of ongoing military operations and general insecurity.
The Mingora area has been relatively free of militant violence
for the past several weeks. In certain pro-militant suburbs of
Mingora such as Kanju, however, clashes still occasionally occur
as the military conducts search operations.

Above Mingora, Security Uneven
--------------


5. (C) North and east of Mingora, strict security measures
have meant that until very recently, there have been no
humanitarian assessments - the lack itself a measure of how

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different the situation is from Lower Swat. There is no
complete consensus on the level of returns; while a USAID/OFDA
implementing partner which visited the central Swat on July 27
reported that approximately half of the pre-conflict population
along the main road between Charbagh and Matta were present
(reftel),post contacts who visited their home villages in
Central Swat reported that few people had returned; most of
those present had never left in the first place. Both sources
agree that the level of devastation in these areas is higher
than in Mingora and Lower Swat, and that it increases as one
travels further up the valley. (Note: Beyond Matta, in
thinly-populated and non-Pashtun Upper Swat, post knows of no
assessments. The relatively minimal conflict reported, however,
implies that damage is less extensive.)


6. (C) The primary strongholds of the Tehrik-i-Taliban
(TTP) in Swat prior to Operation Rah-e-Rast were the areas of
Kabal, just north of Mingora; Charbagh, ten kilometers to the
east of Mingora; and - principally - Matta, in central Swat.
Militants took effective control of these areas in 2007, well
before their activities affected much of the rest of Swat, and
residents fear that the relatively low level of opposition that
they presented to the army during its operation reflected their
deliberate strategy to slip away and begin again. According to
Swat district nazim Jamal Nasir, only in Charbagh was the
intensity of combat commensurate with the known population of
militants operating in the area.

"Army has the Hilltops and the Valleys, But Nothing In Between"
-------------- --------------


7. (C) The Pakistani press has reported daily clashes
between Pakistani troops and militants in rural areas of central
Swat -particularly in the areas of Matta and Kabal - over the
past two weeks. Post contacts confirm that outside of the
principal towns and roads, militants continue to be active. The
report of Qaimoos Khan, a former NWFP Provincial Assembly member
and landowner in Khwazakhela (near Matta, where significant
fighting took place during the initial phases of the operation),
is typical. Qaimoos reported that some of his relatives who had
briefly returned to their homes had almost immediately received
threat letters. He said that while the army in the area
occupied all of the strategic high ground and had checkpoints on
the roads, it has virtually no presence in the villages around
the town of Khwazakhela. Sher Shah Khan, a principal leader in
the Bandai area of Kabal tehsil, has had two relatives kidnapped
in the past two weeks despite a significant army presence in his
home village, a hotbed of militant activity before the operation.

Comment: Patchy Security and Swat's Political Vacuum
-------------- --------------


8. (C) As families have begun to return to Swat in
substantial numbers over the past sixteen days, two very
different pictures of Swat have emerged. One is of a district
where militants have been vanquished, residents are returning
and starting to rebuild, and commerce is flowing. The other is
of a district with significant issues, where militant activity
continues to deter returns, stifle commerce, and create fear of
a return of extremists as soon as the Pakistani military moves
on to its next fight. Both pictures are correct. Despite
undeniable progress by the government of Pakistan in driving
militants out of the most populated areas of Swat and the
relative peace and normalcy that has returned to some regions,
securing the peace throughout the district is a challenge that
it has not yet fully faced. The patchy security situation in
Swat is in some ways a return to 2007, when militancy was
concentrated in rural areas in central Swat where tensions were
high between the major landlords and those who worked the land,
before the insurgency spread to central Swat's cities and then
to the south. As those areas of current militant concentration
correspond closely to the homes of most of the political
leadership of Swat, the distribution of violence seems likely to
create a political vacuum in the "two Swats" for the near future
(septel).
TRACY