IHT : Taliban execute 15-year-old accused as spy

Taliban execute 15-year-old accused as spy

By Taimoor Shah | October 1, 2007

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Taliban insurgents in the southern province of Helmand kidnapped a 15-year-old key maker, accused him of being a spy for the Afghan and foreign authorities, beat him severely, then hanged him from an electrical utility pole, Afghan officials said Monday.

In a final insult, the fighters took five $1 bills they had found in the boy's pocket and stuffed them into his mouth, the officials said. Dollars are commonly used in Afghanistan as a parallel currency to the afghani.

The attackers left a note with the body warning that if anyone else was caught spying, the person would suffer the same treatment, said Wali Muhammad, the police chief of Sangin, a district in Helmand where the killing occurred Sunday night.

Muhammad said relatives of the boy retrieved the body Monday morning and told the police that he had been falsely accused. "He was a poor boy working for his family," said Izatullah Mujahid, the top civilian administrator in Sangin. "He was not working for any organization."

The boy's relatives told Mujahid that the boy was on his way home from work in the Sangin bazaar when he was abducted and killed. The Taliban, which effectively controls parts of Helmand Province, has periodically used hanging as a tactic to terrorize the local population into cooperating with its fighters.

A new U.S. "most wanted" campaign is offering up to $200,000 for information on a dozen Taliban and Qaeda leaders held responsible for bombings and suicide attacks in Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported from Bagram, Afghanistan.

Posters and billboards are to go up around eastern Afghanistan with their names and pictures. Rewards ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 are available for information leading to their capture.