VZCZCXRO2099
PP RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHIL #1122/01 1451205
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 251205Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2882
INFO RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 0333
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0419
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 4938
RUEHKP/AMCONSUL KARACHI PRIORITY 1684
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE PRIORITY 7284
RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR PRIORITY 6223
RUMICEA/USCENTCOM INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 9463
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 3959

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ISLAMABAD 001122 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EAID ECON IO PGOV PHUM PINR PK PREF PREL PTER
SUBJECT: PAKISTAN MILITARY CLAIM MINGORA; PRIME MINISTER 
CALLS FOR MORE IDP SUPPORT 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary. Pakistan military operations continued on 
May 25, as the troops continued efforts to recapture the main 
Swat city of Mingora and secure major intersections and 
surrounding areas.  Major General Athar Abbas, the Director 
General's Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) 
spokesman, reported in a May 24 press conference that the 
operations in Mingora will be "painfully slow" despite the 
operational gains being made by the military.  Media reports 
indicate that "thousands" of South Waziristan citizens are 
fleeing for fear of upcoming military operations in their 
agency.  The Prime Minister announced that the world "should 
do more for the internally displaced persons (IDPs)."  The 
Information Minister announced that the federal Special 
Support Group had assessed the costs associated with the 
rehabilitation portion of the Prime Minister's National 
Response Plan and determined that this phase would require 
USD 1 billion (approximately PKR 80 billion) to complete. 
The religious party Jamaat-e-Islami continued to hold 
anti-American rallies in Islamabad on May 24, saying that the 
Government of Pakistan should not support USG policies and 
should stop the operations in Swat.  End Summary. 
 
--------------- 
MILITARY UPDATE 
--------------- 
 
SWAT District, Malakand Division, Northwest Frontier Province 
(NWFP): 
 
¶2. (SBU) Military operations continued in Mingora, the 
principal city within Swat, on May 25, as the curfew in Swat 
remains in effect for the twentieth day.  In a press 
conference on May 24, Major General Athar Abbas, the 
Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) spokesman, reported 
that the operations in Mingora will be "painfully slow." 
Abbas, however, also reported that the Pakistan Military 
(PakMil) had made steady progress in Swat, capturing major 
cities, militant hideouts, and intersections, including a 
crossing that became notorious for Taliban beheadings.  In 
the village of Peochar, a stronghold of the Swat Taliban, 
PakMil reportedly seized a cache of arms and a factory for 
manufacturing bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). 
He noted that at this point in the Mingora operations, ten 
militants and three PakMil soldiers had been killed and 14 
Taliban had been arrested.  No numbers of civilian casualties 
were reported in the media.  PakMil troops had also 
encountered 12 IEDs and defused four of them. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Abbas noted that due to the ongoing operations, 3000 
residents were trapped in the city of Kanju, a Swat city 
north of Mingora.  The operations are preventing the 
residents from leaving or relief supplies from reaching the 
area. (Note: Prime Minister Yousef Gilani told Ambassador on 
May 25 that there were approximately 70,000 residents trapped 
throughout Swat. End note.) 
 
LOWER DIR District, Malakand Division, NWFP: 
 
¶4. (SBU) In Lower Dir, the curfew will remain relaxed until 
1600 on May 25, except for Chakdara, a city in southern Lower 
Dir near the Swat border.  Local press reports note 
district-wide shortages in fuel with heavy price gouging 
taking place. 
 
CHARSADDA District, Malakand Division, NWFP: 
 
¶5. (SBU) In Charsadda, the police claimed to have caught 
seven Taliban in a raid on a madrassah; those arrested 
reportedly included Qari Insanullah, a Taliban commander 
accused of conducting attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 
Police recovered three suicide jackets, explosives and 
assault rifles. 
 
ORAKZAI Agency, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA): 
 
¶6. (SBU) Pakistani jets and helicopter gunships attacked 
Taliban hideouts in Orakzai, including reported strongholds 
of Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud's deputy.  According 
to the media, Tehrik-e-Taliban commander Ehsanullah and 
twelve other Taliban were killed in these attacks. (septel) 
 
ISLAMABAD 00001122  002 OF 004 
 
 
 
SOUTH WAZIRISTAN Agency, FATA: 
 
¶7. (SBU) Press reported that two soldiers were killed in 
South Waziristan when militants attacked a Frontier Corps 
(FC) fort.  The media continue to report that "thousands" of 
Waziristan residents are fleeing in anticipation of 
operations by the PakMil. (Note. U.S. Consulate Peshawar 
contacts report that Mehsuds are leaving South Waziristan via 
North Waziristan and reiterated that several thousand 
departing is not an unreasonable estimate. End note.) 
 
¶8. (U) Please see the weekly talibanization cable from U.S. 
Consulate Peshawar for further reporting on militant 
activities throughout the NWFP and FATA. 
 
--------------------------- 
CURRENT CONDITIONS FOR IDPS 
--------------------------- 
 
GOP actions: 
 
¶9. (U) In a press conference on May 25, Information Minister 
Qamar Zaman Kaira, head of the federal Special Support Group 
(SSG), announced that the SSG had completed its assessment of 
the costs expected to be associated with the rehabilitation 
phase of the Prime Minister's National Response Plan, and in 
order to complete the phase, it would cost USD 1 billion 
(approximately PKR 80 billion).  Kaira also reported that the 
current IDP figures stood at over 2.7 million internally 
displaced persons (IDPs). (Note: The UN Office for the 
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report the 
numbers to be at 2.3 million registered IDPs. End note.) 
Kaira noted that the SSG spent the day briefing various GOP 
ministries on the current IDP situation and the associated 
costs. 
 
¶10. (U) PakMil reported in the press that it was extending 
delivery of relief supplies, to include sending 15 trucks of 
relief goods to the besieged people in Maidan, Lower Dir 
(home of Maulana Sufi Mohammad), Bahrain and Kalam (both 
cities within Swat).  The Pakistan Army reports that it has 
donated 510 tons of food from its daily quota, which includes 
flour, pulses, sugar and ghee (or clarified butter). 
 
¶11. (U) Although still being developed and not yet fully 
operational, the NWFP Emergency Response Unit (ERU) website 
contains information on IDP numbers, registration points, 
camps, sectoral responsibilities, and points of contact.  The 
address is http://www.helpidp.org/who is doing what.php. 
 
Humanitarian Situation: 
 
¶12. (U) OCHA reported that the 27 current camps, which are 
hosting more than 150,000 IDPs, have electricity and regular 
health service provisions.  OCHA is currently planning for 
contingencies for the upcoming monsoon season, which 
typically starts in July and lasts until August or September. 
 
¶13. (U) According to OCHA, IDP registration is beset with 
problems, including fraud and lack of registration 
capacities.  They estimate that as many as 30 percent of the 
2.3 million IDPs registered with the GOP Ministry of Social 
Welfare are fraudulent, and people are registering with fake 
identity cards or registering multiple times for purposes of 
benefits.  (Note: The National Database and Registration 
Authority (NADRA), which is responsible for issuing the 
national identity cards, has recently assumed responsibility 
for entering all IDP registration into a database in order to 
eliminate duplications and verify population numbers.  The UN 
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told Embassy that 
NADRA will complete data entry by the end of May. End note.) 
OCHA also estimates that only 60 percent of the host families 
for IDPs are receiving some level of assistance, largely due 
to access and fraud issues, and many of the host families are 
receiving duplicate assistance. 
 
Humanitarian Coordination: 
 
¶14. (U) The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, a consortium of 29 
 
ISLAMABAD 00001122  003 OF 004 
 
 
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working 
in Pakistan, has released a consolidated report of 
approximately fifteen NGO rapid assessments conducted within 
the first three days of the recent displacement in Mardan and 
Swabi districts.  The combined assessments identified 
humanitarian needs, including hygiene kits, household 
supplies, safe drinking water, health services, food 
assistance, livelihoods interventions (cash grants or 
vouchers), and protection services for female-headed 
households, unaccompanied children, and other vulnerable 
populations.  However, the NGOs each conducted the initial 
assessments quickly, without overall coordination on 
humanitarian sectors or geographic locations covered, 
resulting in gaps in the data. 
 
¶15. (U) A major international humanitarian organization 
working in Pakistan informed the Disaster Assistance Response 
Team (DART) of the need for a comprehensive assessment of the 
IDP situation.  One possibility would be using the 
Multi-cluster Rapid Assessment Mechanism (MCRAM) methodology, 
which was used during the Balochistan earthquake response in 
November 2008.  The MCRAM assessment methodology includes 
questions from each humanitarian sector and is conducted by 
the UN agencies and NGOs, in coordination with the GOP. 
 
¶16. (U) The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has included a 
request to fund the MCRAM assessment in the revised UN 
Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). NGOs had previously agreed 
not to conduct separate assessments if the MCRAM assessment 
were done within 72 hours of a humanitarian emergency.  MCRAM 
was not done when the recent displacement began in early May 
due to lack of available funding. 
 
Food Assistance: 
 
¶17. (U) According to OCHA, meals in camps are being provided 
by caterers three times per day, at a cost of PKR 85 
(approximately USD 1) per person, per day.  UNHCR informed 
Embassy on May 25 that dry food rations and firewood 
provisions would be arranged in the camps shortly, in some 
camps as soon as this week. 
 
Health: 
 
¶18. (U) OCHA noted that IDPs in the camps have good access to 
primary health care provided by NGOs, including International 
Medical Corps and Merlin, as well as the UN World Health 
Organization (WHO), which with UNICEF is the cluster lead. 
 
¶19. (U) WHO has recorded increasing cases of diarrhea in the 
camps and is investigating the source by testing the food and 
water provided to the IDPs.  WHO suspects that the locally 
produced ice supplied by GOP authorities may be the source of 
the problem, but this has yet to be confirmed. 
 
---------------- 
POLITICAL UDPATE 
---------------- 
 
¶20. (SBU) On May 24, Prime Minister Gilani pleaded that the 
world "should do more for the IDPs."  He announced that the 
operations in Swat would be to the benefit of the world and, 
therefore, more should be done in humanitarian assistance. 
 
¶21. (SBU)  The religious party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) held 
another anti-American rally in Islamabad on May 24 in which 
its leader, Munawar Hassan, called for an end to military 
operations that were killing innocent civilians.  He accused 
the Government of Pakistan (GOP) of pursuing pro-American and 
"mischievous" policies. 
 
¶22. (SBU) Meanwhile, a group of moderate religious leaders, 
headed by madrassah Jamia Naemia leader Safaz Naeemi, 
organized an anti-Taliban rally for June 2 in Lahore. 
 
¶23. (SBU) The public debate about where the IDPs should be 
housed continued after several days of violent protests in 
Sindh province, organized by the Jiay Sindh Quami Mahaz 
(JSQM) party and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) against 
locating IDPs in Sindh.  The mohajir-based MQM has a growing 
 
ISLAMABAD 00001122  004 OF 004 
 
 
concern about the presence in Karachi of Pashtuns fleeing 
combat in the FATA. (Note: Even before the IDP crisis, there 
were between 3 million and 4 million Pashtuns in Karachi. End 
note.)  The Chief Ministers of Sindh and Punjab have welcomed 
publicly the IDPs but want them to be registered.  The GOP 
and NWFP governments prefer the IDPs be housed as close to 
their homes as possible to facilitate returns in a more 
timely fashion. 
PATTERSON