KABUL, 24 May 2005 — In two separate incidents, Taleban rebels claimed yesterday to have beheaded two people and killed another in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika. Rebel spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the insurgents beheaded two people who were “spying” for US military in the area.
“All three people were spying for US military in Paktika province,” he said, adding that one of the decapitated person was the brother of a district governor of the province.
Hakimi said insurgents killed the other “spy” yesterday morning. On Saturday, 12 insurgents were killed in a US airstrike in the same province after a US patrol was ambushed by suspected Taleban, US-led coalition forces said Sunday.
Afghan authorities also have retrieved the bodies of two men, thought to be Uzbeks, who were kidnapped as they drove down a major highway in a southern province last week, an official said yesterday.
Meanwhile, Afghan and US-led coalition forces arrested 15 suspected drug traffickers and seized a large quantity of opium in a major counter-narcotics swoop in a southern province, local officials said. The operation began Sunday in Helmand province and continued yesterday.
