Suspected spies killed by militants in Pakistan

Suspected Islamic militants decapitated one Afghan man and shot dead another after accusing them of spying for the US in a tribal region in north-western Pakistan, an intelligence official said today.

The body of one slain man was dumped by the side of a road on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal region, where helicopters also raided a suspected militant facility, the official.

A note written in the locally spoken Pashto language that was found with the body identified the man as Habibur Rehman of Zurmat tribe from Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, the official said.

The note said that Rehman was spying for the US in Miran Shah and Mir Ali, another North Waziristan town, and received £100-a-month from the US for the job, he said.

Witnesses said that the man’s head, hands and legs had been severed and the victim appeared to be in his 30s and he wore a small beard.

The note warned that no one should perform a funeral for the slain man, the official said.

The body of the other Afghan was found near a bazaar in the town of Dattakhel, west of Miran Shah. A Pashto-language note accused him of being a US spy and identified him as Mohammed Ameer from Afghanistan’s Paktika province, the official said.

Militants are blamed for attacking people suspected of spying for US and Pakistani authorities in the region, which borders Afghanistan, and where al-Qaida- and Taliban-linked fighters operate.

Scores of people – including Afghan refugees and Pakistani tribesmen and clerics – have been killed in such attacks in the region in recent years.

Pakistan has deployed some 90,000 troops to its regions bordering Afghanistan, including North Waziristan, to track down militants.

But US and Afghan officials say militants still have bases in Pakistani territories from where they orchestrate attacks inside Afghanistan.

Violence has increased in the Pakistani region in recent weeks and militants, who renounced a peace deal with authorities last month, have since then staged almost daily attacks on security forces.

Pakistan army helicopters strafed a suspected militant weapons storage facility Saturday afternoon west of Miran Shah, but there were no reports of casualties, the army’s top spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said.

Arshad said there was no information on any militant casualties in the raid.

The targeted facility in a rugged region, about 24 miles from Miran Shah, also included a residential area.