Posted on 03/30/2004 3:54:55 AM PST by ThermoNuclearWarrior
Two Pakistanis Executed by Al Qaeda Militants Tue Mar 30, 2:51 AM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Hafiz Wazir
WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Islamic militants on the Afghan border shot dead two Pakistanis hostages, a government official said on Tuesday, a day after the military said it had killed an al Qaeda spy chief.
The deaths heighten tension on Pakistan's remote Afghan border where about 5,000 troops attacked 400 to 500 al Qaeda and other Islamist fighters in a 12-day offensive that ended on Sunday with more than 100 people dead.
The hostages, among 14 kidnapped government men, were found in a ditch near a well late on Monday, shot in the head and chest, close to Wana in rugged South Waziristan where they worked as district officials, the military said.
"They were unarmed," Mahmood Shah, the region's security chief, told Reuters. The other 12 hostages, all paramilitary troops, were released unharmed on Sunday.
The military said a spy chief in Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network, identified only as "Abdullah," was among 63 militants killed in the raid, but the government has yet to find his body or confirm his identity.
Shah declined to comment on speculation the slain man might be Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian also known as Saleh or Abu Mohammad al-Masri, who is listed among the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's 22 "most wanted terrorists."
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah was indicted by a U.S. grand jury for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 224 people were killed in 1998.
UNCERTAIN IDENTITY
Pakistani intelligence received radio intercepts indicating the man was an Egyptian known as "Abdullah" in charge of communication equipment in the compound where local tribesmen had sheltered al Qaeda and other foreign fighters, Shah said.
But some radio intercepts suggested the man may have been a courier, Shah said, casting doubt on the spy claim and adding to mounting uncertainty over his identity.
The sweep of Pakistan's tribal belt, involving 50,000 troops, is the biggest in the semi-autonomous territory and has netted 167 militants, including 73 foreign fighters. Forty-six soldiers were killed along with more than a dozen civilians.
U.S. forces are hunting on the other side of the border in what the Americans have called a "hammer and anvil" operation. Militants linked to al Qaeda are widely believed to be behind bomb blasts in Madrid this month that killed 190.
Heavy resistance at the start of the offensive suggested tribesmen were helping to protect a "high-value target," maybe bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.
The military later dismissed that as "guesswork."
But officials say a wounded Uzbek al Qaeda leader, Tahir Yuldashev, was on the run somewhere along the mountainous border, describing the man as al Qaeda's 10th most senior member.
The discovery of the two dead hostages follows last week's grisly execution of eight soldiers taken hostage by militants in an ambush on an army convoy. The men were also shot in the head and chest in a ditch, their hands bound behind their back.
"The two hostages were found shot in much the same way as the eight soldiers," said Shah. He said it was unclear when the men had been killed but tribal sources said they appeared to have been shot soon after the fighting started on March 16.
President Pervez Musharraf, accused by Islamic hard-liners of pandering to Washington at the expense of Pakistani Muslims in the tribal operation, has blamed al Qaeda militants with links to the Afghan border area for two attempts on his life in December.
Pakistan, which backed the U.S. war on terror after the September 11, 2001, attacks, had come under pressure for not doing enough to root out militants blamed for a wave of violence in Afghanistan (news - web sites).
There. That's more like it.
Oops. Forgot. One more correction.
With all respect to these (and the many other) Pakistanis who have sacrificed in the fight against islamofacism... The fact that the islamofascists didn't cut off the heads, hold them up smiling for internet video, etc, in their normal death-loving style, is a welcome sign that they are hard pressed.
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