Dreaded militant hit squad goes rogue in Pakistan

[Oldman1]

Dreaded militant hit squad goes rogue in Pakistan - Yahoo! News

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A blindfolded man stands on explosives, trembling as he confesses to spying for the CIA in Pakistan. Armed men in black balaclavas slowly back away. Then he is blown up.

One of his executioners -- members of an elite militant hit squad -- zooms a camera in on his severed head and body parts for a video later distributed in street markets as a warning.

Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network -- blamed for a September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul -- picked the most ruthless fighters from their ranks in 2009 to form the Khurasan unit, for a special mission.

The Obama administration was escalating drone strikes on militants in the Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border and something had to be done to stop the flow of tips used for the U.S. aerial campaign.

Militant groups don't have the military technology to match the American drone programme, but they understand the value of human intelligence, and fear, in the conflict.

So the Khurasan were deployed to hunt down and eliminate anyone suspected of helping the Americans or their Pakistani government and military allies.

Just this week, an Afghan couple visiting Pakistan was shot dead for spying in North Waziristan, where the group operates.

"The whole community is scared of the Khurasan, and sometimes we ask each other 'have you seen the videos'," said one man, who like everyone else interviewed about the Khurasan, asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

"They have people everywhere. How do I know who is an informer for them and who isn't?"

 

[pakdefender]

lol... fool me once shame on you fool me twice erm erm well you cant fool em again ( say that in a texas accent and think over it )

these uglies are being financed by the CIA

 

[RezRoll]

A blindfolded man stands on explosives, trembling as he confesses to spying for the CIA in Pakistan. Armed men in black balaclavas slowly back away. Then he is blown up.

One of his executioners -- members of an elite militant hit squad -- zooms a camera in on his severed head and body parts for a video later distributed in street markets as a warning.

Any sort of humanity is slowly disappearing from this people. I hope they rot in hell when their day comes.

 

[salmakh84]

After what happens when a drone strikes due to these spys, it is no shame that the spies share the same/similar fate...

 

[President Camacho]

Cont. from Oldman1's post...

HAQQANIS IN FOCUS

Made up mostly of Arabs and Uzbeks, the Khurasan, named after a province of an old Islamic empire, are a shadowy group of several hundred men who operate in North Waziristan, where Washington believes Haqqani network leaders are based.

(Named Khurasan Army, for that will be the base to begin the Islamic Armageddon)

CIA pilots, who remotely operate the drones, could step up their pursuit of the Haqqani network leaders after an attack on the U.S. mission in Kabul last month. That would likely prompt the Khurasan to become more ruthless, after capturing about 120 people they've accused of being spies since 2009. When suspected collaborators are caught, they are held in cells in a network of secret prisons across North Waziristan.

A committee of Khurasan clerics decides their fate. Most are declared guilty after what group members admit are "very, very harsh" interrogations.

"They are given electric shocks. If they don't help then an electric drill is used or the spies are forced to stand on electric heaters," said one Khurasan operative.

"Or nails are hammered into their bodies." Any attempt to intervene on behalf of people who are captured is risky. The Khurasan see that as collaboration with the enemy too and it is punishable by death.

Whenever someone is found guilty, the Khurasan make sure everyone knows about it.

"The spies are taken outside residential areas at night and shot dead. Their bodies are thrown on roadsides or squares in the town with a piece of paper warning others to refrain from this 'dirty' job of spying," said one operative.

Their methods have become so brutal and widespread that the Khurasan have alienated some of the militant leaders who created them, men who would not think twice about ordering beheadings.

"We tried very hard to reform the Khurasan but repeated attempts to correct them failed," the top Taliban leader in North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, said in a statement.

The Khurasan are not dependent on larger militant groups like the Taliban, funding their operations through kidnappings.

PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT SEEKS HELP FROM PUBLIC

They are making it more difficult for the Pakistani army to persuade Pashtun tribal communities to form pro-government militias -- a cornerstone of its counter-insurgency strategy.

On Friday, senior Pakistani military officials complained to members of a North Waziristan pro-government militia that they were failing to improve security and that militants had formed a state within a state there, tribal elders told Reuters.

The Khurasan, meanwhile, have gone rogue, challenging other militants who may want to rein them in.

"No one is above our law," said a Khurasan militant.

"They know each and every thing about the people they pick up. They even have devices on which they record telephone calls of the people they are working on," said a resident of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan.

"They are silent when they carry out operations. They are more sophisticated than the army's commandos."

The Khurasan usually don't engage in direct confrontation with the Pakistani army. But a senior military official says that's changing.

"We face serious problems in areas where the Khurasan operate. We can't leave our compounds and camps because they are on the lookout," said a Pakistani soldier who requested anonymity. "We can't risk an ambush."

 

[President Camacho]

Reality of Ittehad Mujahedeen Khorasan.



On 7the September 2011, the North Waziristan Taliban’s head, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, and its Shura circulated a pamphlet in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), in which they disassociated themselves from Ittehad Mujahedeen Khorasan (IMK), a secretive militant group operating in NWA and involved in tracking down “spies” working for the US-NATO and Pakistani government. According to the Pamphlet, Bahadur and the Shura members stated that they had repeatedly attempted to prevail upon the members of IMK to reform their ways, but could not succeed in their efforts. The IMK is being accused by local tribesmen for involvement in kidnapping and killing of locals on suspicions of being “spies”. So far, dozens of people have been killed by the group in the Agency and their activities continue unabated.

Following this, hardly two days later, the IMK circulated a pamphlet in the NWA, in which they accused Hafiz Gul Bahadur group to be on the payroll of the Pakistani government, and vowed to target anyone, including the Shura members of NWA Taliban, if found guilty of spying for the US or the Pakistani government. The IMK further stated that they would make confessional videos of the people caught by the IMK on charges of spying, which would be presented to the local populace of NWA as evidence of their involvement in this heinous crime.

The IMK surfaced in the NWA somewhere in 2010. The group’s main task was to identify and punish people for being involved in spying for the US and Pakistani governments in the Agency. The group is composed of local Duar and Uthmanzai Wazir tribesmen drawing a strength of several hundred men. However, the group maintains total secrecy and nobody knows about their rank and file, except members of the North Waziristan Taliban Shura. According to the locals, the members of this group are said to working under cover, and are spread throughout the Agency, operating in the guise of local Taliban militants, farmers, students, traders and shepherds.

On the face, it seems that serious differences have emerged between the two Taliban groups in the NWA. However, the reality could be totally different and these new developments are said to be mere an eyewash. The IMK is basically an intelligence wing of the North Waziristan Taliban and was formed in the wake of killing of many foreign and local militants in US drone strikes in NWA since 2009. To disrupt this network of spies, the IMK was formed by Gul Bahadur group in North Waziristan Agency.

According to local sources, Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led North Waziristan Taliban also offered Hakimullah Mahsud, head of the Pakistan-focused Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to allow some of his men to join the IMK to disrupt spy network in the Agency. However, Mahsud is reported to have declined the offer by saying that if the group arrest spies with solid proof and in broad day light then his men would join the group. However, since the group uses vehicles with tinted glass windows, and wears masks then his men would not join the IMK.

During the past one year, local people in North Waziristan Agency have got disaffected with the activities of IMK. Dozens of people are reported to have been kidnapped by the group and later killed on allegations of spying for the US forces stationed in Afghanistan. In most of these cases, the IMK did not provide any solid evidence of their victim’s involvement in spying for US or Pakistani forces. Due to these activities of the IMK, hatred against the group has reached new heights among the local people, and fear has engulfed local tribesmen of falling prey to the activities of this secret group. This has also generated hatred against Bahadur, since locals believe that he aids and abets the IMK in the Agency. For example, in August 2011, the IMK kidnapped Rehmatullah Wazir, a local journalist from Miranshah, and shifted him to an unknown location.

The kidnapping of Wazir angered the local journalist community, and he remains missing and nobody has so far claimed responsibility for his abduction. There are also fears that Wazir could have been killed by the IMK in order to hide their involvement in his kidnapping. It was precisely in this context that Gul Bahadur and his Shura issued a call dissociating themselves from Khorsan group in order to control the situation and retain the goodwill of the local people. Bahadur’s circular aims to portray the IMK as an independent group that is not functioning under Bahadur and North Waziristan Taliban Shura.

The reality on the ground, however, is starkly opposite to what the pamphlets are stating. If IMK was an independent group, then it would have a leader and it would have an operational base, and its members would be known by the people in the Agency. The pamphlet circulated by Hafiz Gul Bahadur was signed by ten Shura members, including Bahadur himself, but the pamphlet circulated by IMK does not carry any name on it. However, the IMK pamphlet was circulated on a letter head.


FATA Research Center

 

[rohailmalhi]

Oh come on .

American do this in Guantanamo Bay and they did it some other place.Both are bastards and killing civilians in between.

So Y dont i see a topic saying Americas becoming mad dogs Killing innocent civilians.IN Afghanistan.

 

[President Camacho]

Oh come on .

American do this in Guantanamo Bay and they did it some other place.Both are bastards and killing civilians in between.

So Y dont i see a topic saying Americas becoming mad dogs Killing innocent civilians.IN Afghanistan.

Because you are in the wrong section.

 

[Vassnti]

Simple system, they kidnap you if your family doesnt come up with a ransom they hammer nails into you kneecaps till you "admit" your a spy then they shoot you.

I some times wonder if there are actually any spies in the area