Wikileaks: The Gangs of Karachi

 

Wikileaks: The Gangs of Karachi

US Embassy cable - 09KARACHI138
SINDH - THE GANGS OF KARACHI
Identifier: 09KARACHI138
Origin: Consulate Karachi
Created: 2009-04-22 11:52:00
Classification:

Tags:PTERASECPGOVPK

VZCZCXRO6005
OO RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHKP #0138/01 1121152
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 221152Z APR 09
FM AMCONSUL KARACHI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1042
INFO RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 0499
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 0271
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0314
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 1861
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE PRIORITY 2720
RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR PRIORITY 4603
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHMFISS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUMICEA/USCENTCOM INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 KARACHI 000138

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2019
TAGS: PTER, ASEC, PGOV, PK
SUBJECT: SINDH - THE GANGS OF KARACHI

Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN FAKAN FOR REASONS 1
.4 b and d.

1. (S) Summary: The police in Karachi are only one of several
armed groups in the city, and they are probably not the most
numerous or best equipped. Many neighborhoods are considered
by the police to be no-go zones in which even the
intelligence services have a difficult time operating. Very
few of the groups are traditional criminal gangs. Most are
associated with a political party, a social movement, or
terrorist activity, and their presence in the volatile ethnic
mix of the world,s fourth largest city creates enormous
political and governance challenges.

MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement)
------------------------------

2. (S) The MQM is an ethnic political party of the Urdu
speaking community (known as \"Mohajirs,\" which is Arabic for
immigrants) that migrated from India at the time of
partition; Mohajirs make up around fifty percent of the total
population in Karachi. MQM is middle-class, avowedly
secular, and anti-extremist (the only party to publicly
protest the recent Swat Nizam-e-Adl regulations). It has a
long history of clashes with the Pakistan People,s Party
(PPP), which controls the Sindh province in which Karachi is
located, and with the Awami National Party (ANP), which
represents MQM,s rival ethnic Pashtuns.

3. (S)MQM\'s armed members, known as \"Good Friends,\" are the
largest non-governmental armed element in the city. The
police estimate MQM has ten thousand active armed members and
as many as twenty-five thousand armed fighters in reserve.
This is compared to the city\'s thirty-three thousand police
officers. The party operates through its 100 Sector
Commanders, who take their orders directly from the party
leader, Altaf Hussain, who lives in exile in the United
Kingdom. The Sector Commanders plan and monitor the
activities of the armed elements. MQM\'s detractors claim
these armed men are involved in extortion, assassination of
political rivals, shootings at campaign rallies, and the
murder of people from other ethnic communities.

4. (S) Low to middle-ranked police officials acknowledge the
extortion and the likely veracity of the other charges. A
senior police officer said, in the past eight years alone,
MQM was issued over a million arms licenses, mostly for
handguns. Post (Consulate) has observed MQM security personnel carrying
numerous shoulder-fired weapons, ranging from new European
AKMs to crude AK copies, probably produced in local shops.
MQM controls the following neighborhoods in Karachi:
Gulberg, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Korangi, Landhi, Liaquatabad,
Malir, Nazimabad, New Karachi, North Nazimabad, Orangi Town,
Saddar and Shah Faisal.

MQM-H (Muhajir Quami Movement-Haqiqi)
-------------------------------------

5. (S) MQM-H is a small ethnic political party that broke
away from the MQM in the mid-1980s. MQM-H has its
strongholds in the Landhi, Korangi and Lines Area
neighborhoods of the city. The MQM regarded these areas as
no-go zones when it was in power during the Musharraf
presidency. As a condition for joining the Sindh government
in 2003, it asked that MQM-H be eliminated. The local police
and Rangers were used to crack down on MQM-H, and its leaders
were put behind bars. The rank and file of MQM-H found
refuge in a local religious/political party, Sunni Tehrik
(see para 9). The local police believe MQM-H still maintains
its armed groups in the areas of Landhi and Korangi, and that
the party will re-organize itself once its leadership is
released from jail.

ANP (Awami National Party - Peoples National Party)
--------------------------------------------- ------

6. (S) The ANP represents the ethnic Pashtuns in Karachi.
The local Pashtuns do possess personal weapons, following the
tribal traditions of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP),
and there are indications they have begun to organize formal
armed groups. With the onset of combat operations in the

KARACHI 00000138 002 OF 003

Federally Administered Tribal Areas in August 2008, a growing
number of Pashtunsfled south to swell the Pashtun ranks of
what already is the largest Pashtun city in the world. This
has increased tensions between ANP and MQM.

7. (S) If rhetoric of the police and the ANP leadership is to
be believed, these armed elements may be preparing to
challenge MQM control of Karachi. In March, the Karachi
Police Special Branch submitted a report to the Inspector
General of Police in which it mentioned the presence of
\"hard-line\" Pashtuns in the Sohrab Goth neighborhood. Sohrab
Goth is located in the Northeast of the city.

8. (S) The report said this neighborhood was becoming a no-go
area for the police. The report went on to claim the
Pashtuns are involved in drug trafficking and gun running and
if police wanted to move in the area they had to do so in
civilian clothing. A senior member of the Intelligence
Bureau in Karachi recently opined that the ANP would not move
against MQM until the next elections, but the police report
ANP gunmen are already fighting MQM gunmen over
protection-racket turf.

ST (Sunni Tehrik - Sunni Movement)
----------------------------------

9. (S) ST is a small religious/political group with a
presence in small pockets of Karachi. The group has only
managed to win a handful of council seats in local elections
but militarily it is disproportionably powerful because of
the influx of MQM-H gunmen after the government crack-down on
MQM-H(see above). ST has organized the party and its gunmen
along the lines of MQM by dividing its areas of influence
into sectors and units, with sector and unit commanders. ST
and MQM have allegedly been killing each other\'s leadership
since the April 2006 Nishtar Park bombing that killed most of
ST\'s leadership. ST blames MQM for the attack. There
appears to have been a reduction in these targeted killings
since 2008.

PPP (Pakistan People\'s Party)
-----------------------------

10. (S) PPP is a political party led by, and centered on the
Bhutto family. The party enjoys significant support in
Karachi, especially among the Sindhi and Baloch populations.
Traditionally, the party has not run an armed wing, but the
workers of the PPP do possess weapons, both licensed and
unlicensed. With PPP in control of the provincial government
and having an influential member in place as the Home
Minister, a large number of weapons permits are currently
being issued to PPP workers. A police official recently told
Post that he believes, given the volume of weapons permits
being issued to PPP members, the party will soon be as
well-armed as MQM.

Gangs in Lyari: Arshad Pappoo (AP) and Rahman Dakait (RD)
--------------------------------------------- ------------

11. (S) AP and RD are two traditional criminal gangs that
have been fighting each other since the turn of the century
in the Lyari district of Karachi. Both gangs gave their
political support to PPP in the parliamentary elections. The
gangs got their start with drug trafficking in Lyari and
later included the more serious crimes of kidnapping and
robbery in other parts of Karachi. (Comment: Kidnapping is
such a problem in the city that the Home Secretary once asked
Post for small tracking devices that could be planted under
the skin of upper-class citizens and a satellite to track the
devices if they were kidnapped. End comment.)

12. (S) Each group has only about 200 hard-core armed
fightersbut, according to police, various people in Lyari
have around 6,000 handguns, which are duly authorized through
valid weapons permits. In addition, the gangs are in
possession of a large number of unlicensed AK-47 rifles,
Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers and hand grenades. The
weapons are carried openly and used against each other as
well as any police or Rangers who enter the area during
security operations. During police incursions, the gang
members maintain the tactical advantage by using the narrow

KARACHI 00000138 003 OF 003

streets and interconnected houses. There are some parts of
Lyari that are inaccessible to law enforcement agencies.

Pashtun Terrorists
------------------

13. (S) A Senior IB officer recently opined to Post that \"All
Pashtuns in Karachi are not Taliban, but all Taliban are
Pashtuns.\" The size, scope and nature of \"Talibanization\"
and true Taliban terrorist activity in Karachi is difficult
to pin down, but Post has increasingly received anecdotes
about women, even in more upscale neighborhoods, being
accosted by bearded strangers and told to wear headscarves in
public.

14. (S) There has not been a terrorist attack against U.S.
interests in Karachi since 2006. There are several theories
about Taliban activity in Karachi and why they have not
staged an attack in so long. One school of thought has it
that MQM is too powerful and will not allow the Pashtuns to
operate in Karachi, and this, combined with the ease of
operating elsewhere in Pakistan, makes Karachi an undesirable
venue. Another line of thinking claims Karachi is too
valuable as a hiding place and place to raise money.

15. (S) In April, the police in Karachi arrested Badshah Din
Mahsud, from their Most Wanted Terrorist list, known as the
Red Book. It is alleged he was robbing banks in Karachi at
the behest of Baitullah Mehsud, from the NWFP, and the money
was being used to finance terrorist activity. There is a
large body of threat reporting which would seem to indicate
the equipment and personnel for carrying out attacks are
currently in place in Karachi. In April, Karachi CID told
Post they had arrested five men from NWFP who were building
VBIEDs and planed to use them in attacks against Pakistani
government buildings; including the CID office located behind
the US Consulate. CID also claimed they had reliable
information that suicide vests had been brought to Karachi.

16. (S) Comment: The importance of maintaining stability in
Karachi cannot be over-emphasized. Traditionally, Karachi
was at the center of lawlessness, criminal activity, and
politically-inspired violence in Pakistan. But with the
security situation in the rest of the country deteriorating,
the megalopolis has become something of an island of
stability. Nevertheless, it still has a number of well-armed
political and religious factions and the potential to explode
into violent ethnic and religious conflict given the wrong
circumstances.

17. (S) The PPP,s decision to include MQM in coalition
governments in Sindh Province and in the federal government
has helped preclude a return to the PPP-MQM violence of the
1990,s. But the potential for MQM-ANP conflict is growing
as Pashtuns challenge Mohajir political dominance and vie for
control of key economic interests, such as the lucrative
trucking industry. Any sign that political violence is
returning to Karachi, especially if it is related to the
growing strength of conservative Pashtun \"Taliban,\" will send
extremely negative shockwaves through the society and likely
accelerate the flight from Pakistan of the business and
intellectual elite of the society. End comment.

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