Pakistani Taliban Publicly Executes 'Spies' Using Explosives

Taliban militants in Pakistan strapped bombs to two men they accused of spying for the United States, blowing them up at a public execution, security officials said Friday.

The Taliban frequently kidnap and kill tribesmen in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt shadowing the Afghan border, but traditionally slit their throats or shoot them. Locals said it was the first such killing with bombs.

The incident took place in the Degan area of North Waziristan, a district that has attracted increasing U.S. attention as a nexus of Al Qaeda-linked and Taliban militants, following a failed bomb plot in New York.

"Masked Taliban strapped improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to the bodies of two alleged spies and blew them up in public," local police official Khalil Khan told AFP.

The Taliban threatened anyone "spying" for the United States with the same fate and called on locals to witness the public execution late Thursday in an announcement made through a local mosque.

A local intelligence official confirmed the executions.

The Taliban recently captured the tribesmen and accused them of passing on information to the Americans, which led to U.S. missile strikes around the village of Inzarkas in North Waziristan, the intelligence official said.

A barrage of U.S. missile attacks in the area killed up to 24 militants this month, only days after U.S. officials arrested Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad on charges of trying to plant a car bomb in New York's Times Square.

Shahzad allegedly told interrogators that he went to Waziristan for bomb training and U.S. officials would like Pakistan to start a major offensive in the district to stamp out militant havens.

Washington considers the Afghan-Pakistani border areas a global headquarters of Al Qaeda, where success in rooting out Islamist militants is vital if the U.S. military is to reverse a nearly nine-year Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.