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INFO RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD IMMEDIATE 4917
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE IMMEDIATE 2008
RUEHKP/AMCONSUL KARACHI IMMEDIATE 2016
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RHMFISS/CDR USSOCOM MACDILL AFB FL
RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR 5211

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PESHAWAR 000161 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  8/4/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PTER MOPS EAID PK
SUBJECT: NWFP: CENTRAL SWAT KHANS HAVE LOST AUTHORITY, COMPLICATING 
POST-CONFLICT GOVERNANCE 
 
REF: A) PESHAWAR 158  B) LAHORE 153 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate 
Peshawar, Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (d) 
¶1.      (C) Summary: Central Swat's prominent landowning "khan" 
families, who have long formed the backbone of Swat's political 
leadership, have seen their position seriously undermined by the 
rise of militancy in Swat and their flight from the district. 
Now, they are attempting to rebuild their positions in the 
district and create an indigenous anti-militant counter-force, 
against a backdrop of continuing violence and class resentment 
in central Swat.  Their own dearth of resources, lack of 
government support for their plans, and internal rivalries will 
make the accomplishment of this task close to impossible.  While 
the passing of the landlord class may be a positive development 
for Swat in the long run, it will likely create difficulties for 
Swat's government administration in the immediate wake of the 
conflict there.  End Summary. 
 
The Departure of the Khans 
-------------------------- 
 
¶2.       (C) Since before the time of the British, Swat's politics 
have been dominated by the khans, prominent landowning families 
from among the district's dominant Yusufzai Pashtuns who command 
the allegiance of the people of their localities.  Even now, 
virtually all of Swat's National Assembly and Provincial 
Assembly members and nazims (elected leaders at the district, 
tehsil, and union council level) are members of these families. 
Swat's urbanization, land reform, and other economic and social 
changes have marginalized some of these families (the family of 
the Wali, the former ruler of Swat, now has little land and 
virtually no authority within the district), but in certain 
parts of the district, khans were until recently able to resist 
the tide and retain much of their power and influence.  This was 
particularly the case in central Swat - especially around Matta. 
 Khans in Matta wielded disproportionate influence in the 
politics of Swat as a whole, dominating their own region and 
leading the actions of allied families in other parts of Swat 
and in neighboring districts. 
 
¶3.       (C) Over the past two years, this picture has changed 
dramatically.  Targeted by militants, the khan families of 
central Swat largely abandoned their homes in two waves - one in 
late 2007, as the militant pressure began to intensify and at 
the beginning of the first Pakistani military campaign in Swat, 
and one in mid-2008, as conditions worsened again in the wake of 
that campaign.  Many of them moved to nearby Abbottabad, or 
further afield to Peshawar or Islamabad.  In their absence, 
militants destroyed their homes, orchards, processing plants, 
and other symbols and elements of their economic power.  Both by 
their flight and by the destruction of their property, the khans 
suffered considerable loss of face in Swat.  The primary 
exception was Afzal Khan Lala, the most prominent member of one 
of the leading families of central Swat, whose refusal to leave 
his home even during the period of militant dominance of Swat 
and despite the deaths of many of his relatives have made him 
something of a folk hero among Swat Pashtuns. 
 
Insecurity and Conditions for Militancy Still In Central Swat 
--------------------------------------------- ---------------- 
 
¶4.       (C) With the conclusion of the government's military 
campaign in Swat, the khans have begun to make plans to return. 
Those who have spoken to us are deterred, however, by the 
continuing insecurity in their home areas.  Throughout central 
Swat, and especially in Matta and Kabal, continued militant 
activity and ongoing military operations have restricted access 
to the area for intending returnees (Ref A).  While members of 
prominent families in Lower Swat and the Mingora area have been 
returning, Consulate contacts say that those of central Swat 
have generally made exploratory visits but then returned to 
their cities of exile. 
 
¶5.       (C) The returnees complain that while the army remains in 
place in central Swat, it lacks ties to Swat's people and 
therefore information; as a result, militants are able to move 
about unmolested and intimidate the population.  (Note: 
Pakistani press on July 29 quoted an anonymous source within the 
 
PESHAWAR 00000161  002 OF 003 
 
 
NWFP police as admitting that the government now had virtually 
no informants left in the Swat population.)  Several Consulate 
contacts found hope of an anti-militant trend in Swat from the 
series of revenge killings of suspected Swat militants over the 
past two weeks (at least ten have been reported).  They have 
variously attributed these killings to the military and to the 
families of the militants themselves.  Almost all of these 
killings, however, have taken place in the Mingora area and 
Lower Swat.  In central Swat, the khans allege that militants 
are still the force that most intimidates the population. 
 
¶6.       (C) While the khans who have spoken to post claim to have 
the support of their traditional dependents in their home areas, 
they are likely aware that the grievances that originally drove 
militancy are still present.  From the beginning of militancy in 
Swat, the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) in the district took advantage 
of the class struggle between khans and poor Swatis to fill its 
ranks with those who had felt oppressed by the khans.  The TTP's 
excesses have diminished its attractiveness, but the arrival of 
thousands of impoverished farmers to devastated lands will 
recreate the discontented population that originally fed the 
militancy.  Among certain populations, history is already being 
revised.  As recently as July 30, Shahzad Gujar, a tribal elder 
and head of the "Gujar Qaumi Movement" (which purports to 
represent the Gujar tribesmen who make up much of the population 
of landless, non-Pashtun peasants living in central Swat but who 
joined the militants in disproportionately low numbers) told a 
panel of prominent Malakand politicians and tribal leaders and 
Pakistani academics that the taliban in Swat had been a positive 
force - militants' excesses late in their period of dominance, 
he said, had actually been brought on by criminals calling 
themselves taliban. 
 
No Government Support for Khans 
------------------------------- 
¶7.       (C) This underlying resentment against the khans among 
central Swatis and the loss of face that the khans have suffered 
help to explain the intensity with which the major landowning 
families in central Swat have pursued the government assistance 
in regaining their original positions in Swati society.  This 
drive has included khans' requests for reimbursement of 
destroyed property and for public government recognition of 
their stance against the militants (neither of which has met a 
positive government response).  The principal goal of the khans' 
lobbying, however, has been the acquiring of government sanction 
and assistance in setting up private armies.  Already as the 
military operation in Swat was in late May (and before any 
returns were possible), Afzal Khan Lala in nationally televised 
interviews began calling on the government to arm the people of 
Swat against the militants.  According to several Consulate 
contacts involved in the Swat Qaumi Jirga (a pressure 
group/quasi-government-in-exile formed of prominent Swatis), the 
Jirga was involved in equally intense backroom lobbying to the 
same end at both the provincial and federal levels. 
 
¶8.       (C) At first, the NWFP government appeared to buckle to 
the pressure, unofficially floating a plan to provide surplus 
police arms to local "village defense committees" in mid-June. 
By early July, however, criticism of the scheme by various 
stakeholders (including the Embassy) caused the NWFP government 
to publicly withdraw the offer of arms to such groups.  The 
government instead proposed that they be given to a special 
supplemental police force for Swat, which would be more 
accountable to the provincial government and police (though it 
is unclear to the Embassy how exactly the special police would 
interact with other police in the district).  The landowners 
complain that such forces, lacking the stiffening provided by 
accountability to local leadership (i.e., to the khans), will 
melt away if faced by renewed insurgency.  They continue to 
lobby the government to either reverse this decision or to 
provide them with funds to help equip their own forces, but at 
present they do not have the means to present the kind of 
counterforce against the militants which several have told post 
is the sole prerequisite for their return. 
 
Divisions Among the Khans 
 
PESHAWAR 00000161  003 OF 003 
 
 
------------------------- 
 
¶9.       (C) Longstanding divisions between the major landed 
families also continue to play a role in preventing Swat's 
political leadership from presenting a unified front against the 
militants.  The major families of Yusufzai khans in Swat (as 
well as neighboring Buner and Shangla, and to a lesser extent 
Dir) have for centuries been divided between two rival groups, 
called "dallas."  Prior to Swat's absorption into Pakistan, one 
group was aligned with and the other generally opposed to the 
Wali.  After absorption, most members of the pro-Wali group 
aligned with the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and most members 
of the opposition aligned with the Awami National Party (ANP). 
The two groups have been and continue to follow the leads of the 
two principal families of the Matta tehsil of Central Swat, who 
are represented most prominently by Jamal Nasir (the nazim of 
Swat district) and Afzal Khan Lala respectively.  On occasion, 
as in the 1970s when faced by the socialist Mazdoor Kissan 
movement, the two dallas have united to face a common threat. 
As militancy began to rise over the past few years, however, the 
two groups pursued different strategies. 
 
¶10.     (C) By mid-2007, when militants began to target Swat's 
political leaders, the Musharraf-aligned PML-Q (Pakistan Muslim 
League-Quaid - primarily composed of the dalla led by Jamal 
Nasir's family) held most locally-elected offices in Swat not 
held by MMA (Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal - the religious party 
alliance which at that time governed the NWFP).  The ANP (and 
therefore Afzal Khan Lala's dalla) held virtually no offices and 
therefore was not initially targeted.  Under pressure and losing 
relatives to assassinations and kidnappings, Jamal Nasir's 
family went to Afzal Khan Lala in September 2007 and asked him 
to join them in forming a lashkar and repressing the militants; 
Afzal Khan consulted with his family and declined to do so. 
Members of both dallas point to this moment as the key missed 
opportunity in dealing with the militants; by the time the 
militants began in earnest to target the ANP-linked families in 
mid-2008, the landowners as a class were no longer in a position 
to mount any resistance. 
 
¶11.     (C) Ironically, Afzal Khan Lala has become the most 
respected leader in Swat primarily because of the period of 
militant dominance that his initial reluctance to fight helped 
to create.  The militants drove virtually all other major 
landlords and secular politicians out of Swat, while Afzal Khan 
courageously refused to leave his home.  Among Jamal Nasir's 
dalla, this fact has engendered a mixture of envy and 
resentment.  In Afzal Khan Lala's dalla, there is ambivalence 
about allowing old rivals to take advantage of Afzal Khan Lala's 
prominence to regain the status they had lost.  Discussions 
among the landowners of both dallas continue, but there are few 
indications of concrete progress in forming a united front 
capable of presenting an alternative to the militants. 
 
Comment:  Khans' Influence Wanes, But Who Will Replace Them? 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
¶12.     (C) In the wake of their flight from Swat and their 
impoverishment by militant actions, the once-powerful khans of 
central Swat have been reduced to government supplicants, unable 
to recreate the system they once dominated.  To the government, 
they are expendable - particularly now that the local offices of 
nazim, which the khans dominated, will be stripped of power by 
the repeal of the local government ordinance (Ref B).  The khans 
were in many ways as important in fueling militancy as they 
could have been in crushing it, and the Embassy assesses that 
government equipping of unaccountable private armies would have 
created greater problems than it would have solved.  In the long 
run, the diminution of their power should diminish the class 
struggle that has fed the militancy in Swat.  However, the 
khans' argument that they are the natural anti-militant leaders 
appears to be true in the absence of any evidence of more 
grassroots anti-militant activity.  Their absence will strip 
Swat of needed intermediaries for the non-Swati bureaucrats who 
are now setting up to rebuild the district and bring it firmly 
under the government writ. 
TRACY