AS KHYBER FIGHTING MOVES INTO PESHAWAR, FC LAUNCHES

C O N F I D E N T I A L PESHAWAR 000183


E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/3/2019
TAGS: PTER MOPS PGOV PK
SUBJECT: AS KHYBER FIGHTING MOVES INTO PESHAWAR, FC LAUNCHES
OPERATION

REF: A) PESHAWAR 179; B) PESHAWAR 176; C) 08 PESHAWAR 523


CLASSIFIED BY: Candace Putnam, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate
Peshawar. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



1. (C) Summary: Two months of fighting in Khyber Agency,
FATA, between two rival militias--Lashkar-i-Islam and Ansarul
Islam--spilled over into the outskirts of Peshawar, culminating
in bombings on August 22 and 23. The fighting has more to do
with control over lucrative criminal activity than with
ideology, but Pakistani government officials suggest that
Manghal Bagh's Lashkar-i-Islam is using new tactics that may
signal it has formed links with the TTP. A Frontier Corps
operation against Lashkar-i-Islam in the Bara area of Khyber
Agency is now underway. End summary.


2. (C) Twin bombings in Hayatabad on August 22 and in Momin
Town on August 23 marked the first time that such bombs had been
used effectively within the city of Peshawar in two months. The
August 22 bomb, placed in a car which officials say was
detonated remotely, killed Haji Mubin Afridi and a companion.
Haji Mubin had been the spokesman of Ansarul Islam, a militant
organization based in Khyber agency. The August 23 bombing,
carried out by a man wearing a suicide vest, targeted the home
of his family and killed three people and injured 15 when the
bomber was forced to detonate himself prematurely. Both
bombings were believed to be the work of rival militant
organization Lashkar-i-Islam, whose leader Mangal Bagh is
generally considered to be the most powerful criminal in Khyber.


Government Joins Sectarian Battle
--------------


3. (C) The attacks were the most recent event in a round of
internecine fighting between LI and AI beginning in early July,
after LI had carried out targeted assassinations of two tribal
figures in the Khyber city of Jamrud and the Tirah valley. LI
and AI, which began operations in 2007 as the armed groups
supporting two rival preachers based in the Tirah valley in
western Khyber (both are now exiled),have repeatedly battled
each other and other, clan-based, criminal organizations over
control of turf in the agency. A particularly disputed prize
has been the lawless Bara tehsil, where the Embassy's Narcotics
Affairs Section reports that 4300 acres of poppy remain under
cultivation.


4. (C) According to prominent Bara-based Afridi elder Malik
Waris, clashes between LI and AI began on July 4, after the LI
assassination of an anti-LI Afridi Kuki Khel clan elder and
retaliatory FC bombardment of FC positions in Tirah valley
emboldened AI to begin acting aggressively in the Tirah. This
touched off fighting between the two organizations that was
intensified by the July 8 LI assassination of an AI-aligned
Tirah valley clan elder. Fighting then spread to Bara and
culminated in pitched battles between the two groups in both
areas; reportedly over one hundred group members were killed in
these clashes in July.


Peshawar Targeted
--------------


5. (C) By late July, deployments of Frontier Corps and
Frontier Constabulary began to respectively bombard suspected LI
positions and arrest LI partisans in Bara and the western
outskirts of Peshawar district - actions which NWFP Frontier
Corps commander Major General Tariq Khan told PO had "crushed"
the LI's combat power in Bara. Over the week of August 7-13,
Peshawar was targeted almost every day by small-scale launches
of rockets originating in Bara, to the west, and Matanni, to the
south; rocket attacks on the city have continued infrequently
since then (ref A). LI-AI fighting has also continued
sporadically in the Tirah valley, but not in Bara.


LI-TTP Alliance?
--------------


6. (C) NWFP Chief Minister Hoti told PO that the August 23
bombing marks the first time that the LI has employed a suicide
bomber. Whatever the origins and pretensions of the group might
be, it has always been more criminal than ideological and has
never inspired the level of commitment in its adherents
necessary to recruit suicide bombers. The fact that they were
now able to employ this tactic with success, he said, suggests
at least a tactical alliance between LI and TTP, which has been
deploying suicide bombers with effect for over two years.


7. (C) In late 2008 and early 2009, the two organizations
fought each other as the TTP under Hakimullah Mehsud tried to
expand its area of operations to target NATO supplies transiting
the agency before a Frontier Corps-supported operation largely
drove TTP back into neighboring Orakzai agency. According to
two Consulate contacts who work as journalists in Khyber,
however, there have been rumors over the past few months of
growing links between the two organizations, as TTP has
contracted LI to carry out attacks and kidnappings in Khyber and
Peshawar on its behalf. In particular, the journalists say a
mid-July resumption of attacks on tankers carrying NATO fuel
bears all of the hallmarks of LI but represents a target set
previously avoided by the organization, which has previously
considered tolls from the transiting trucks to be a good revenue
source. On August 27, the TTP claimed responsibility for the
suicide bombing of a khassadar post at the Torkham border
crossing, which killed 22.


FC Operation Planned
--------------


8. (C) The tit-for-tat actions between the FC and LI in
Bara and Peshawar appear to be only a prelude for a larger FC
operation to clear out the militant group's stronghold in the
Tirah valley (between Khyber and Orakzai Agencies). NWFP FC
commander Major General Tariq Khan told PO on August 25 that he
would launch an operation into this area in a few weeks - as
soon as he finished with his planned operation into the Mamoond
tehsil of Bajaur, using troops now being withdrawn from Buner,
where the FC has concluded operations. He claimed that the
operation in Tirah would take only a week. Habibullah told PO
September 2 that a Frontier Corps operation focused on Bara had
been underway since the previous afternoon, with airstrikes on
the Tirah as a follow-on; a full ground operation into the Tirah
would have to wait.


9. (C) Comment: The NWFP government had generally adopted
a posture of toleration toward LI's continued presence in the
area because it considered the group to be a relatively
nonthreatening (and anti-TTP) militant organization (ref C).
When LI moved its operations into Peshawar, however, the
government was forced to act against an increasingly serious
deterioration of law and order. An LI alliance with Hakimullah
Mehsud would be particularly dangerous; an increased operational
profile in the Khyber-Peshawar area would be an attractive way
for Hakimullah to assert his primacy in the TTP (ref B).


PUTNAM