Militants execute men accused of spying for U.S.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – In a gruesome public spectacle, Taliban-linked militants Friday 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 Bajaur 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 believed 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-e-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!”

In the aftermath, celebratory gunfire killed two in the crowd of onlookers and injured six others, local authorities said.

The militants’ local commander, who calls himself Commander Wali Rehman, said the two had confessed to spying for U.S. and government forces. He said they had implicated others who also would be brought to justice.

Pakistan’s new government has been trying to negotiate peace accords with militant factions in the tribal areas.

No truce has been struck as yet in Bajaur, but informal understandings with government forces appear to have given the militants freedom of movement.