VZCZCXRO6264
OO RUEHDBU RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #0460/01 0610723
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 020723Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7563
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 000460 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM 
STATE PASS USAID FOR ASIA/SCAA 
NSC FOR WOOD 
OSD FOR WILKES 
CG CJTF-101 POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/02/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM AF
SUBJECT: TRIBAL VENGEANCE AND HONOR IN THE MOUNTAINS OF 
DAR-I-NOOR 
 
Classified By: PRT Director Valerie C. Fowler for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( 
d) 
 
Summary 
-------- 
 
¶1.  (C) On February 7, Nangarhar's Provincial Council (PC) 
Secretary was shot and killed, and the Goshta district 
administrator was killed by a roadside bomb.  A Taliban 
spokesman took credit for both attacks.  After the PC 
Secretary was killed, hundreds of local villagers mobilized 
to find the gunmen.  One was shot dead as he fled; the other 
was detained by residents, who refused to turn him over to 
police.  Among those who refused to cooperate with police 
were prominent local and national officials who were 
relatives of the murdered PC member.  The detained suspect 
was hanged later that day, apparently by the victim's 
relatives and/or local residents.  The revenge killing is an 
example of the ancient Pashtunwali Code being put into 
practice.  Even if prominent community leaders did not take a 
direct part in the killing of the suspect, their refusal to 
hand him over to the proper authorities reveal how 
deeply-ingrained tribal customs are in some parts of 
Afghanistan. 
 
Murder and Revenge 
------------------ 
 
¶2.  (C) Nangarhar PC Secretary Qazi Khan Mohammad Malik Baba, 
the third-highest ranking member of the province's top 
elected body, was shot and killed in an early-morning ambush 
while driving past an orchard in his native Dar-i-Noor 
district.   The ambush took place in the heart of Nangarhar's 
close-knit ethnic-minority Pashai community.  The murdered PC 
member was Pashai.  Dar-i-Noor District Administrator Mashuq 
Malim, also a Pashai, said he arrived on the scene minutes 
after the killing, and told us that hundreds of armed 
villagers arrived on the scene to search for the suspects. 
They were followed by police, and then local officials. 
These included: PC Chair Fazil Hadi Muslimyar; Head of the 
Provincial Coordination Center, Police Colonel Ibadullah 
Talawar; Nangarhar Deputy Head of the National Directorate 
for Security (NDS), Colonel Arif; and the district 
administrator from adjacent Kuz Kunar district, Shukrullah 
Durani.  They found the two suspects, one of whom tried to 
run but was shot.  The second suspect, later identified as 
Ajmal, surrendered.  Both suspects were ethnic Pashtuns from 
Shaga village in Kuz Kunar district, who had ventured into 
the mostly-Pashai Dar-i-Noor. 
 
The King of Dar-i-Noor 
---------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C) Within minutes of detaining Ajmal, the much larger 
crowd refused to allow officials to take the suspect into 
custody, saying they did not trust the Afghan judicial system 
and that the courts would eventually set him free.  Officials 
and police allowed the residents to keep the suspect.  "The 
crowd was very angry and the police did the only thing they 
could do," Nangarhar Governor Gul Agha Sherzai said, during a 
meeting of provincial security officials the next day. 
Sherzai and various officials confirmed that the crowd was 
led by prominent Pashai tribal leader Malik Gul Mohammad 
Malik Baba (MGM), often referred to as "the King of 
Dar-i-Noor."  Malik Gul Mohammad is the slain PC member's 
uncle, and a member of the National Security Council. 
Several local officials, including the Dar-i-Noor district 
administer, told us that they witnessed the suspect being 
tortured.  PC Chair Muslimyar said he pleaded with MGM to 
allow authorities to take custody of the suspected killer. 
Governor Sherzai also said he had secured a promise that the 
suspect would be released to the proper authorities. 
 
¶4.  (C) That evening Dar-i-Noor District Administrator Mashuq 
Malim received a call from a friend, telling him that the 
detainee had been killed and that his body had been dumped in 
a nearby field.  A post-mortem examination revealed that the 
suspect, Ajmal, had been hanged.  The extra-judicial killing 
is under investigation, the deputy police chief said.  He 
added, "I cannot believe that Malik Gul Mohammad ) someone 
who is working for such an important organization with the 
government ) could be involved in such activity." 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
 
KABUL 00000460  002 OF 002 
 
 
¶5.  (C) The swift mobilization of Pashai villagers in 
Dar-i-Noor to hunt for the suspected killers shows a type of 
rough, mountain "civil society."  It is the type of 
close-knit community cooperation which developed from 
centuries of being a minority people surrounded by others, in 
an area which historically has been isolated from official 
police protection and other governmental services.  Nangarhar 
University Professor Shah Wali told us that the revenge 
killing in Dar-i-Noor is also a perfect example of the 
Pashtunwali Code being put into practice.  Although the 
Pashai are not ethnic Pashtun, they adhere to the Pashtunwali 
Code, which has guided social behavior in the region since 
before Islam, and dates back to the Bactrian era.  The word 
"Badal," or revenge, is shared by both Pashtuns and Pashai. 
Badal requires a family ) especially a prominent one ) to 
kill someone guilty of murdering one of their own as quickly 
as possible.  It is a matter of defending the family's honor, 
Professor Shah Wali said.  The alleged complicity in the 
suspect's detention and killing by prominent community 
members and government officials shows how family and tribal 
loyalties can predominate over notions such as rule of law. 
Even if those prominent community leaders did not take a 
direct part in the killing ) police are still investigating 
and have not determined who killed the suspect ) their 
refusal to hand him over to the proper authorities reveals 
how deeply-ingrained are tribal customs in some parts of 
Afghanistan. 
DELL