Taliban militants killed two Afghan men yesterday in Pakistan’s restive tribal belt after accusing them of spying for US-led forces deployed across the border, local officials said.
The bullet-riddled bodies of the victims were thrown on a road that connects the troubled North Waziristan tribal district to Khost Province in Afghanistan, both strongholds of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
The executions were the latest in a string of similar killings and come a day after a suspected US drone fired missiles and destroyed an al-Qaeda sanctuary in North Waziristan, killing 14, including terror network operatives.
A note left on their bodies in Pashto said the victims were kidnapped from Khost earlier in the week and had confessed to being spies, a local administration official said.
Militants have killed dozens of local tribesmen and Afghan nationals for alleged spying, mainly for the Pakistani government or US forces operating across the border.
Executions routinely follow suspected US missile strikes against militant targets in Pakistan, which officials say are often conducted on intelligence provided by paid local informants.
Meanwhile, Pakistan condemned the suspected US missile strike that killed 14 people near the Afghan border and indicated that the new US general for the region was pressing on with attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Pakistani territory.
A surge in US cross-border attacks since August has angered Pakistani officials who said the raids were violating the nuclear-armed country’s sovereignty and undermining its own anti-terror war in the border region.
“The US administration’s reluctance to consider the repercussions of such operations is damaging the whole purpose of global efforts to combat terrorism,” Pakistani Information Minister Sherry Rehman said.
Rehman said in a statement late on Friday that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was urging Washington to halt the attacks. It was unclear if Zardari raised the matter in an overnight telephone call with US president-elect Barack Obama.
Repairing strained ties while keeping pressure on militants hiding in the frontier area will be a key challenge for Obama when he takes office in January.
Friday’s attack by an unmanned plane took place in Kam Sam village in the North Waziristan region, a stronghold of militants blamed for killing US troops in Afghanistan and suicide blasts within Pakistan.
A Pakistani intelligence official said an agent who visited the village reported that 14 suspected militants had died. The official said the targeted house belonged to a local Taliban commander and that authorities were still trying to determine who exactly was killed.
A government representative in the region also put the toll at 14. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
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