REF: A) PESHAWAR 144;
ISLAMABAD 1464; C) ISLAMABAD 1385; D) ISLAMABAD 1358;
E) IIR 6 802 0086 08
CLASSIFIED BY: Lynne Tracy, Principal Officer, U.S. Consulate
Peshawar, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (d)
¶1. (C) Summary: As the government of Pakistan has worked to
prepare for its upcoming ground operation in South Waziristan
Agency (SWA) against Baitullah Mehsud (ref C) and the
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), it has narrowed the focus of
its operation by attempting to keep neutral the two other major
militant leaders in the area and building two other more minor
leaders up against Baitullah. The government has worked through
jirgas led by Deobandi clerics associated with the Jamiat
Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) to isolate Baitullah and his lieutenants;
as the operation has become more imminent (and to JUI-F leader
Fazlur Rehman's chagrin), these jirgas have been sidelined.
Tribal maliks, though included in those jirgas, are too cowed to
play anything other than supporting roles, and the SWA Political
Agent, while talented, is rarely able to even enter SWA due to
security concerns. Political actors will continue to work
around the edges, but they are ceding the field to the military
and militants for the foreseeable future. End summary.
Baitullah Mehsud and His Lieutenants
------------------------------------
¶2. (C) 35-year-old Baitullah Mehsud has been the most
prominent militant in Waziristan since the death of Wazir leader
Nek Mohammad in 2004 and the most notorious militant in Pakistan
since his announcement of the formation of the TTP and
assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. He has
undisputed control over the Mehsud home areas of northeastern
SWA and significant influence in areas with Mehsud diaspora
populations such as Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts. Since
the formation of TTP, an umbrella group whose expressed aim is
to overthrow the government of Pakistan and secure its FATA
safehaven in order to support cross-border attacks into
Afghanistan, Mehsud and his allies had established significant
levels of effective control in part or all of Kurram, Orakzai,
Khyber, Mohmand, and Bajaur agencies, as well as in Swat,
Shangla, Buner, and Lower Dir districts prior to recent military
operations. In all of these areas, Consulate contacts and
Pakistani press have reported a strong presence of Mehsud
tribesmen and allied Uzbek militants supporting local elements
fighting against the government.
¶3. (C) Qari Hussain has long been Baitullah's most feared
lieutenant from Waziristan; a post contact in the NWFP
parliamentary assembly included him as one of six militants
whose death would prove that the Pakistani government was
"serious" about finally getting tough on militants. He was
notable over the period 2006-8 for claiming the most extreme and
offensive actions taken by the TTP, particularly in the wake of
the government's July 2007 operation against the Lal Masjid in
Islamabad. These actions included suicide bombings throughout
the NWFP, the kidnapping of FC personnel, and an attack on the
Tank family residence of the Political Agent for Khyber Agency
which killed many of his relatives and guests, among them
surrendering women and girls, violating one of the strongest
taboos under Pashtun tribal law. Baitullah disavowed most of
these activities, though they generally directly benefited him.
In late 2008, after the conclusion of the most recent peace deal
in SWA, Baitullah "exiled" him to North Waziristan because of
his poor image; he recalled him to SWA recently. Hussain may
have been killed in an air strike on a post-funeral meeting on
June 23 in South Waziristan.
¶4. (SBU) Hakimullah Mehsud, a first cousin to Baitullah, has
come to prominence more recently, initially commanding TTP
forces assisting Sunni militants who were fighting Shi'a
militants in Kurram agency and neighboring Hangu district. His
activities quickly spread to Orakzai, where he masterminded an
October 2008 suicide bombing of a jirga that killed over fifty
tribal maliks and broke virtually all organized resistance to
TTP control in most of the agency. By early December 2008, his
men in Khyber were launching regular raids on trucking depots
around Peshawar and burning hundreds of trucks containing
supplies for American forces in Afghanistan. A Pakistani
military operation in Khyber in January 2009 reduced TTP
effectiveness operating out of that agency, but Hakimullah
continued to plan and execute attacks out of his base in Orakzai
PESHAWAR 00000147 002 OF 005
prior to returning to SWA in late May, reportedly with large
numbers of those under his command and in preparation for the
upcoming SWA operation.
Misbahuddin Mehsud and Turkestan Bhittani - GOP Surrogates
--------------------------------------------- -------------
¶5. (C) Misbahuddin Mehsud, the 23-year-old younger brother
of the recently assassinated Qari Zainuddin (ref C), is
Zainuddin's apparent successor as leader of a group of Mehsuds
independent of Baitullah who have engaged in tit-for-tat
assassinations and street battles with the TTP in the areas of
Tank and Dera Ismail Khan over the past several months.
Zainuddin was generally considered raw and untested; his close
familial relation (first cousin) to deceased militant leader
Abdullah Mehsud and the clear Pakistani government backing given
to him, however, had made him the pole around which
anti-Baitullah militants had coalesced. Misbahuddin is even
more untried. He is reportedly more poorly educated and rougher
of manner than Zainuddin (Misbahuddin's nickname is Tofan,
meaning "storm" and referring to his temper).
¶6. (C) Turkestan Bhittani, a 40-year-old soldier who retired
from the South Waziristan Scouts (Frontier Corps) in 1998 to
fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan, was an ally of Baitullah
Mehsud until 2007. Following his break with Baitullah, he
formed a militia composed primarily of members of the Bhittani
tribe. The Bhittani, whose population lives primarily in the
area along the border between SWA and Tank and controls access
between Mehsud territory and the settled areas to the east, has
a history of feuds with the Mehsuds; relatively few Mehsuds are
settled in Jandola and the other Bhittani-dominated areas around
it. A June 2008 incident in which TTP-affiliated Mehsuds
overran the town of Jandola and carried off thirty Bhittani
tribesmen and killed over twenty of them (including many close
relatives of Turkestan) solidified Bhittani tribal opposition to
the TTP. As Qari Zainuddin's group gained mass over recent
months, Turkestan allied his own, longer-lived group to it, and
this alliance seems unlikely to change with Zainuddin's death.
A Bhittani contact told us that it was Turkestan's firm control
of F.R. Tank that allowed Qari Zainuddin space to grow his
group; Turkestan had and continues to have a strong personal
interest in assisting any group that would weaken the TTP.
Hafiz Gul Bahadur - Siding with the TTP
---------------------------------------
¶7. (C) Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a senior militant commander in
North Waziristan Agency (NWA) and erstwhile rival of Baitullah
Mehsud for the title of "leader" of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, is an
Utmanzai Wazir in his late 40s. Despite considerable effort by
the Pakistani government to keep him on the sidelines and an
initial period in which his quiescence appeared to indicate that
he would stay out of the fight, Bahadur allowed and then claimed
a series of escalating ambushes of Pakistani military convoys
June 26-28. His spokesman then announced on June 29 that the
February 2008 peace deal with the government that Bahadur had
hitherto more or less respected was now a dead letter due to
continued drone strikes in and Pakistani military operations
near NWA (ref
. (Note: Consulate contacts told us that
Bahadur had faced pressure from lieutenants to confront the
Pakistani military.) The government responded with airstrikes
against his positions on June 30, but reiterated its commitment
to the peace deal. A low-level conflict has ensued since, with
occasional minor attacks by militants on Pakistani military
installations.
Maulavi Nazir - Neutral?
------------------------
¶8. (C) Maulavi Nazir, the senior militant commander in
southern and western SWA, is an Ahmadzai Wazir in his 30s. Our
contacts from and in SWA consider Nazir to have been the
Pakistani government's man ever since his 2007 campaign against
Baitullah Mehsud ally Haji Omar and associated Uzbek militants
residing in Ahmadzai areas of SWA, though Nazir signed on to the
February 2009 alliance with Baitullah. Like Bahadur, he has
remained silent about the upcoming operation; on July 2, he told
PESHAWAR 00000147 003 OF 005
a jirga that he would maintain neutrality. A well-connected
Ahmadzai Wazir who resides part-time in Wana told us that Nazir
will stay out of the fight unless a spillover from the campaign
creates significant casualties among Ahmadzai Wazir militants or
civilians. In such a circumstance, Nazir would come under
considerable pressure to retaliate proportionately. This is a
plausible eventuality. According to a Consulate contact in SWA,
since the beginning of June, an Ahmadzai lieutenant of Nazir in
the Angoor Adda area of SWA (near the Afghan border) has
repeatedly detonated roadside bombs against Pakistani military
vehicles, killing several soldiers and wounding dozens of
others. More recently, over the past two weeks rockets have
been fired from Ahmadzai Wazir areas toward Pakistani military
installations in and around Wana. The Pakistani army has
retaliated in each instance by shelling militant positions in
the areas from which attacks have been launched.
The Haqqanis - Staying Out of the Fight
---------------------------------------
¶9. (S) Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, Afghans
who are based primarily in NWA, are involved primarily in the
fight against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Jalaluddin, a
former anti-Soviet mujahid from the Zadran tribe who had been
aligned with Hizb-i-Islami (Khalis), is now in his 70s and is
considered by our contacts to have a close relationship with
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Sirajuddin, in his
30s, runs day-to-day affairs for the Haqqani network. This
Taliban group operates primarily in Khowst and Paktika provinces
but is also suspected of having a hand in some of the most
audacious Taliban attacks in Kabul, including the July 2008
bombing of the Indian embassy there. The Haqqanis have
generally taken the stance that attacks against Pakistan's
government are illegitimate, and they have worked to keep
militant leaders in Waziristan focused on the war in Afghanistan
- without success in the case of Gul Bahadur. They appear to be
hunkering down as well; a Consulate contact in the inner circle
of the NWFP's ruling Awami National Party (ANP) says that they
have moved their families out of the agency and to Rawalpindi
(ref A).
Maulana Fazlur Rehman and the Deobandis - The Would-Be Mediators
--------------------------------------------- -------------------
¶10. (C) The opening moves to the government's SWA campaign
have occasioned a flurry of jirgas aimed at mediating between
the Pakistani government and the various militant leaders.
These jirgas have been very similarly composed: led by elected
officials or prominent mullahs (and usually both), they have
been composed in equal measure by maliks from the affected areas
and prominent mullahs active in the region but outside of tribal
structures. The most active jirga, which has been shuttling
between the Pakistani government and Baitullah Mehsud, has been
led by Senator Saleh Shah, a Deobandi cleric in his thirties
from SWA (but not a Mehsud or Wazir) who leads two madrassas,
one in the Tirarzia tehsil of SWA (north of Wana, in the Mehsud
area) and the other in the Mehsud-settled Murtaza area of Tank.
In his absence (when the Senate is in session), jirga leadership
has generally fallen to Maulana Esamuddin Khan, a Mehsud
Deobandi cleric who has led a madrassa in Makeen, the heart of
the area controlled by Baitullah. Maulana Mirajuddin Qureshi,
another Mehsud Deobandi cleric who is a former National Assembly
member, has also played a leading role. Over the past two
weeks, activity by this jirga has tailed off as military
operations have increased their pace.
¶11. (C) Saleh Shah, Esamuddin, and Qureshi (along with fellow
repeated jirga leaders Noor Mohammad among the Ahmadzai Wazirs
and Maulavi Nek Zaman among the Utmanzai Wazirs) are affiliated
with the Deobandi Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam party faction under the
direction of Maulana Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F). Fazlur Rehman,
whose hometown is nearby Dera Ismail Khan, has positioned
himself and his party as a primary mediator between the
government and militants; his affiliates have been mediators in
each of the five peace agreements concluded in the Waziristans
since 2004. His decreasingly oblique criticisms of Pakistani
military operations in Swat and the surrounding Malakand
PESHAWAR 00000147 004 OF 005
division and his more direct criticisms of a follow-on
Waziristan operation have kept pace with the increasing drumbeat
of official talk about Waziristan. Fazlur Rehman's upset at the
prospect of such an operation may in part be a reaction the
political support that his party continues to carry there
(significantly greater than that enjoyed by his party in
Malakand), but it also reflects the fact that the beginning of
such an operation will represent the eclipse of his affiliates'
mediating role in favor of force wielded by parties outside of
his control.
The Maliks - A Non-Factor
-------------------------
¶12. (C) The peace jirgas of the past two months, led and
partially staffed by Deobandi clerics, have generally been
filled out by Mehsud maliks (tribal elders). Our contacts from
SWA have uniformly dismissed them as entirely cowed by Baitullah
and irrelevant in mediation; the deaths of over three hundred
other Waziristan maliks over the past four years appear to have
sapped them of the willingness to confront Baitullah in any way
and rendered them essentially placeholders in the jirgas for
sake of form. Asked if there were any maliks of sufficient
stature to chart an independent course at all, one contact
responded with a Pashtun proverb in which a prince, queried on
how he kept his kingdom under control, replied by silently
chopping off the tops of all of the tallest poppies in the field
where he was walking.
Shahab Ali Khan - The Absentee Political Agent
--------------------------------------------- -
¶13. (C) Shahab Ali Khan, a Bannu native in his mid-30s, was
appointed Political Agent (PA) of SWA in September 2008. He has
been in district government service for just over ten years;
before his current posting, Khan had most recently served as
District Coordination Officer in the sectarian strife-ridden
Hangu district from 2007. Shahab Ali has been described by his
peers and locals as a good negotiator in an agency where many
consider such skills a necessity, and he most recently played a
secondary role in the release of the kidnapped students from
Razmak Cadet College. He reportedly holds conservative views
and is pious. His youth is noted by his colleagues, though it
is not his greatest handicap: effective militant control over
virtually all of "his" agency makes it difficult to travel
outside of Wana and makes life dangerous even in that city. He
reputedly spends most of his time in Tank.
The Division Commanders - A Mixed Bag
-------------------------------------
¶14. (C) The commanders of the three Pakistani military
divisions that will bear the brunt of the fight in Waziristan
come from widely varying backgrounds. The Seventh Division,
headquartered in Miram Shah, NWA, is commanded by Major General
Navid Zaman. Zaman, a Punjabi from Rawalpindi, spent several
successful years as a staff officer at Pakistan's General
Headquarters (GHQ) prior to assuming command in October 2008.
The Ninth Division, headquartered in Wana, SWA, is commanded by
Khalid Rabbani. Rabbani, who has previous experience as a
brigade commander in the FATA, was most recently assigned as
Pakistan's Defense Attache to Libya and Algeria, which face
counterinsurgency challenges of their own. He left that
position at the end of 2007 and was given command of the Ninth
Division at roughly that time, making him the longest-serving of
the three in their current capacities (ref E). The Fourteenth
Division, headquartered in Tank, is commanded by Major General
Ijaz Chaudhry, of whom less is known; he assumed command of the
division in September 2008.
Comment
-------
¶15. (C) Baitullah Mehsud and the military are the predominant
actors in South Waziristan. However, as the government plays
out a strategy of divide and rule, the alliances, feuding, and
maneuverings of other militants as well as tribal and political
PESHAWAR 00000147 005 OF 005
figures bears watching in assessing the direction that
operations in South Waziristan will take. End comment.
TRACY
