Pakistani Killed for Alleged U.S. Spying

[Judi Lynn]

Pakistani Killed for Alleged U.S. Spying
Associated Press 11.19.06, 5:07 AM ET

Militants beheaded an Islamic school teacher, accusing him of spying for the U.S. in a northwestern Pakistani tribal region, a government official said Sunday.

Maulana Hashim Khan's decapitated body was found early Sunday by local people near a road in al-Fatah Kot village in North Waziristan, said Zafar Ali Shah, a government administrator based in the area.

Khan, 45, had been missing for the past eight days from his school in Shawal, a mountain valley west of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. A note left with his body said that he and Maulana Salahuddin, a cleric assassinated last month, operated as spies for America, Shah said.

"For this reason, we punished him under Islamic laws," Shah quoted the note as saying.
(snip/...)

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/entresales/feeds/ap/2006/11/19/ap3188327.html

[pretzel4gore]

1. hmmm, probably a cia provocation job

the teacher was well liked and very progressive.....maybe(?)
(the important thing is to create illusion that the anti bush imperialists are heartless monsters)
well done, forbes.com and ass. press/'government official' harhar!

[Igel]

2. Probably not.

Spies are hard to come by in this area, and know better. Every few weeks a 'spy' is killed in this area, just as in the rest of Pakistan the occasional blasphemer or adulterer is caught. Usually what happens is that after an investigation it's found that there was a religious or tribal issue involved, not adultery or blasphemy, or the accuser was competing with the accused for land, for a woman, or for a job.

There are lots of local reasons for such a killing. Considering that this is an area where extreme hardliners are really struggling for control, any imam or scholar that says anything different would be a target. Islam is politics and Islam is tribal are both true in this area.