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Militants Behead 2 For Spying

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Los Angeles Times

Published: June 28, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - PESHAWAR, Pakistan - In a gruesome public spectacle Friday, Taliban-linked militants executed two Afghan men accused of spying for the United States, slitting their throats and parading their severed heads before a cheering crowd.

The killings, which took place in front of about 5,000 people in the Bajur tribal region, were said to be in retribution for a suspected U.S. missile strike last month targeting al-Qaida militants.

That strike, in Damadola near the Afghan border, killed at least a dozen people. It was not clear whether a senior al-Qaida or Taliban figure was the target of the attack, the latest of several such strikes this year thought to have been carried out by U.S. forces.

The dual execution was brutal even by the fundamentalist code that prevails in the tribal areas, which lie largely beyond the jurisdiction of the Pakistani government. The killing of accused spies is not unusual, but their public parading is a rarity.

Witnesses said the two men, hooded in white cloths, were brought to a gathering place by militants from the Taliban-affiliated Jaish-i-Islami group. Armed men first slit their throats, then sprayed the bodies with bullets from automatic rifles, then decapitated the pair to chants of "God is great!"

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