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O 051203Z NOV 09
FM AMCONSUL PESHAWAR
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8278
INFO AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD IMMEDIATE 
AMCONSUL LAHORE IMMEDIATE 
AMCONSUL KARACHI IMMEDIATE 
AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI IMMEDIATE 
AMEMBASSY KABUL IMMEDIATE 
NSC WASHINGTON DC
USMISSION USNATO IMMEDIATE 
CIA WASHDC
SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
USCENTCOM INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL
AMCONSUL PESHAWAR

C O N F I D E N T I A L PESHAWAR 000216 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  11/5/2019 
TAGS: MOPS PTER PGOV PK
SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT HOLDS JIRGAS AROUND WAZIRISTAN TO ISOLATE TTP 
 
REF: A) PESHAWAR 213; B) ISLAMABAD 2607; C) PESHAWAR 147; D) PESHAWAR 119 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Candace Putnam, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate 
Peshawar. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary.  As fighting continues in South Waziristan, the 
Pakistani government has expanded its historic divide and 
conquer strategy with the Wazir and Mehsud tribes of the North 
and South Waziristan Agencies (NWA and SWA) to include military 
and civilian leaders and public relations initiatives.  The 
effort has exposed the extent to which both the military and the 
civilians need a complex mix of active and passive tribal 
support to succeed during both ongoing combat operations and 
post-conflict reconstruction.  If the Army can restore the writ 
of government in South Waziristan, there will be more options 
(and fewer excuses for not taking action) to move against 
extremists in North Waziristan. 
 
¶2.  (C) Between late September and late October, the GOP held 
four major jirgas (three with elders from the Mehsud, Ahmadzai 
Wazir, and Utmanzai Wazir and one with stakeholders in the Lakki 
Marwat district) in and near SWA. Chief of Army Staff General 
Kayani has launched a very public appeal to the Mehsuds, and PM 
Gilani has publicly embraced "patriotic" Mehsud tribesmen as 
distinct from the enemy comprised of foreign fighters.  In the 
settled districts of Tank and Lakki Marwat, the GOP seeks to 
shore up local support and block the exit of militants into NWA. 
 In the Ahmadzai Wazir areas of SWA, the government has secured 
its supply routes based on the short-term interests it shares 
with a local militant commander.  In NWA, the government feels 
it must maintain the tenuous alliance of local militant 
commanders if it hopes to conduct a successful campaign against 
the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP). 
 
¶3.  (C) Awami National Party President Asfundyar Wali Khan fears 
a neutrality pact with the Wazirs is translating into safe 
harbor for militants fleeing into NWA and hopes that, 
eventually, the Pakistani military will have to move into NWA 
where it will clash with its proxy forces that continue to 
attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  There is no evidence so far 
to support that hope.  Meanwhile, the FATA Secretariat is 
working with Mehsud elders to control the IDP situation and 
convince the sons of slain Mehsud tribal leaders to help 
re-establish civilian governance after the fighting ends.  (See 
Ref A for more discussions on post-conflict assistance to South 
Waziristan.)  End Summary. 
 
 
Recent Jirgas in Tank and Lakki Marwat... 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) During an October 30 visit to Peshawar, PM Gilani 
publicly embraced "patriotic" Mehsud tribesman as distinct from 
enemy foreign fighters.  This followed a series of civilian and 
military initiatives.  On October 20, NWFP Governor Owais Ghani 
had held a jirga in the city of Tank with Mehsud tribal elders, 
intended as a follow-up to the October 19 letter by Chief of 
Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani that had called for the 
people of the Mehsud tribe to rise up against the TTP.  The 
jirga declined to take any significant steps to condemn or form 
a lashkar against the TTP; however, it requested that government 
allow Mehsuds with temporary residences in the settled areas to 
register as IDPs, a request that the government declined.  The 
jirga also asked that the government provide assistance to 
noncombatant Mehsuds attempting to escape the combat zone (Note: 
now underway - see septel), and that Pakistani security forces 
give the benefit of the doubt to fleeing Mehsuds who did not 
possess identification cards. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) On October 22, the government held a jirga with the 
attendance of tribal maliks and notables from throughout the 
district of Lakki Marwat, which shares a small border with the 
Mehsud area of South Waziristan.  The jirga asserted its 
intention to cooperate with the government by re-forming its 
occasional lashkar, which will patrol against militant 
incursions and punish any Lakki Marwat residents who give 
sanctuary to militants.  The lashkar demonstrated its 
seriousness of intent by destroying a fortified building 
previously occupied by militants in the restive Shah Hasankhel 
area of Lakki Marwat. 
 
 
Earlier Jirgas in Wana and Miram Shah 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Ghani's very public appearance at the Mehsud jirga and 
the heavy attendance at the Lakki Marwat jirga contrasted 
substantially from the much lower-profile, but more significant, 
jirgas held prior to the operation among the Mehsud tribal 
neighbors, the Ahmadzai Wazirs (whose lands lie to the south and 
west of the Mehsuds') and the Utmanzai Wazirs (whose lands lie 
to the north).  On September 30 in Wana, JUI-F-aligned cleric 
Maulana Deendar led the Ahmadzai Wazir delegation in its meeting 
with Shehab Ali Shah, the Political Agent for SWA.  The Ahmadzai 
agreed to allow the Pakistani military safe-passage through 
Ahmadzai-controlled territory, asking in return only that the 
Pakistani military not launch military operations targeting 
Ahmadzai territories. 
 
¶7.  (C) The jirga at which Utmanzai neutrality was achieved, on 
the other hand, was more contentious; while it took place 
September 24, most of the issues raised remain unresolved.  The 
Utmanzai elders present promised that their members would allow 
the Pakistani military safe passage through its territory, and 
the government made clear that it would hold accountable any 
Utmanzai giving sanctuary to fleeing TTP members.  In return, 
the jirga requested several Pakistani government concessions. 
They asked that funds that had allegedly been previously 
allocated for development projects in NWA, but never actually 
spent, be released.  They also asked that curfew be lifted so 
that businesses could reopen and that alleged drone attacks 
cease.  The jirga asked for assurances that the government would 
not close Razmak Cadet College, a quasi-military preparatory 
school for boys that has remained closed since a June evacuation 
in which 46 of the students were briefly kidnapped by militants 
(ref D). 
 
¶8.  (C) The government gave the requested assurances that Razmak 
Cadet College would not be permanently shuttered or moved.  They 
made no commitment to answer any of the jirga's other demands. 
However, the North Waziristan Political Agent contacted USAID 
Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) shortly after the 
conclusion of the jirga to request that twenty OTI projects 
directed toward North Waziristan that the government had 
previously shelved, citing security, should be reactivated as 
conditions had now improved.  A Consulate contact also noted 
that military patrols of North Waziristan areas outside of the 
army's primary logistical routes had diminished. 
 
 
In South, Jirgas to Reinforce Position 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (C) The four major jirgas held by the Pakistani government 
in the area around SWA over the past month are only the latest 
in a flurry of meetings that the government has held since its 
June announcement of intent to mount an operation into 
Waziristan.  However, the results of these jirgas give insight 
into the varying level of government confidence in its ability 
to control events in these various areas. 
 
¶10.  (C) In the Mehsud diaspora in the districts of Tank and 
Dera Ismail Khan immediately to the east of South Waziristan, 
government-backed anti-TTP militant groups drawn from the Mehsud 
and Bhittani tribes have effectively ended a TTP reign of terror 
through extrajudicial killings of their own over a period of 
several months beginning in spring of 2009.  The jirga held in 
Tank did not represent the interests of these anti-TTP militant 
groups, however. The leaders and other participants in this 
jirga were traditional tribal elders and religious figures, a 
class decimated by TTP assassinations over the past two years 
whose lack of an armed following was reflected in their refusal 
to commit to a stance against the TTP.  According to FATA 
Secretary of Law and Order Tariq Hayat Khan, the government is 
now attempting to build up these elders as intermediaries 
between itself and the Mehsuds outside of South Waziristan, in 
hopes that they will be able to transition into a leadership 
role within South Waziristan once the campaign has concluded. 
 
¶11.  (C) In the district of Lakki Marwat, the long-time militant 
control in North and South Waziristan have never translated into 
the insecurity faced over past years by its neighboring 
districts of Bannu, Tank, and DI Khan.  Consulate contacts 
attribute this to the district's system of community defense 
groups, who have intimidated would-be militants and kept local 
police informed of suspicious activities.  Lakki Marwat is being 
studied as a model for engagement between security forces and 
community in other areas at high risk of militant penetration, 
such as the recently secured portions of the Malakand division; 
the government has little fear of insecurity in this district 
but is merely continuing its usual procedure of rallying local 
population to guard against militant incursions. 
 
¶12.  (C) In the Ahmadzai Wazir areas of South Waziristan, 
Consulate contacts believe the government's writ does not extend 
outside of its headquarters in the city of Wana and the various 
troop encampments in and near certain Ahmadzai villages; the 
rest of the territory is controlled by militant leaders 
affiliated with militant commander Maulvi Nazir.  The jirga in 
Wana, held in advance of the operation in SWA, was held to 
secure the army's access to logistics through this area. 
Consulate contacts say that the local maliks who attended the 
jirga were speaking on behalf of Nazir, whose long-time 
opposition to the presence of Uzbek foreign fighters who support 
the TTP (ref C) and clashes with the TTP in August give him a 
shared interest in the TTP's defeat.  A consulate contact who 
attended the jirga said that other attendees had told him Nazir 
had urged the delegation to give the government these 
guarantees. 
 
 
In North Waziristan, Worries About Militants' Neutrality 
------------------------------------- ------------------ 
 
¶13.  (C) In North Waziristan, Consulate contacts say the 
government's writ does not extend outside of the city of Miram 
Shah and troop encampments in and near certain towns.  Much of 
the rest of the territory is controlled by militant leaders 
allied to militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur.  In order to 
block a TTP retreat to the north, the government must position 
and resupply a large force in North Waziristan - impossible 
without the acquiescence of the militants.  Unlike in the case 
of the Ahmadzais, the Utmanzai maliks who participated have 
received relatively little guidance from Bahadur and therefore 
are essentially speaking for themselves.  Bahadur has not yet 
broken the informal truce that has held for the past few weeks. 
However, the Pakistani authorities are not confident that this 
will hold and have been scrambling to minimize irritants between 
the military and the Utmanzais - North Waziristan's Political 
Agent told us October 27 that he had held six jirgas in the 
previous eight days. 
 
¶14.  (C) Frontier Corps chief MG Tariq Khan recounted to CG 
November 3 that he had predicted to Chief of Army Staff General 
Kayani that the NWA Wazirs would stay out of the fight against 
rival Mehsuds with our without jirga negotiations.  "That is one 
of the peculiar dynamics of the Waziristans."  For his part 
Awami National Party leader Asfundyar Wali Khan told CG that he 
feared the militants would exploit a neutrality pact with the 
NWA Wazirs and use the Pakhtunwali tradition of shelter to find 
shelter.  Like FATA Secretariat Chief Habibullah Khan (ref A), 
he expressed the hope that the Army eventually would have to 
tackle North Waziristan.  MG Khan did not rule out that 
possibility, especially if local support for the militants 
continues to erode. 
 
¶15.  (C) Comment:  The GOP's extensive efforts to variously 
cajole, neutralize and threaten the Mehsud and Wazir tribes 
demonstrated the complexity of the Waziristan environment, both 
for ongoing combat operations and post-conflict development 
work.  So far, there have been no concrete signs the Army plans 
to take on extremists in North Waziristan. But if they can 
restore the writ of government in South Waziristan, there will 
be more options (and fewer excuses for not taking action) in 
North Waziristan.  End comment. 
 
 
PUTNAM