By DPA,
Islamabad : The bullet-riddled bodies of four men killed by Taliban fighters allegedly for spying for the US were found Monday in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan tribal district along the Afghan border, officials said.
The bodies of three locals who had been shot several times were discovered in Manzar Khel near Data Khel while the body of an Afghan national was recovered from the district’s Mir Ali area, they said.
An intelligence official said on the condition of anonymity that all four men were killed during the night and their remains dumped by roadsides with a warning to local tribesmen.
“Anyone spying on the Taliban for the US will face a similar fate,” the killers said in hand-written notes found on the bodies.
Islamist militants have executed dozens of suspected spies in the past. They believe some locals identify their positions for US drone attacks in return for money.
A Pakistan general said last week that the air strikes by the unmanned aircraft were effective in eliminating militants.
Major General Ghyaur Mehmood, commander of the army’s 7th Division in North Waziristan, told reporters 964 Islamist militants had been killed in about 164 drone attacks from 2007 to 2011.
Thousands of insurgents are thought to have fled to North Waziristan after Pakistani security forces launched an offensive in October 2009 to dismantle their network in neighbouring South Waziristan.
Pakistan’s tribal belt is considered a bastion of Al Qaeda and Taliban rebels, who use it to carry out assaults on US and other NATO forces in Afghanistan.