Intel officials say ex-Pakistani spy held by alleged militants found shot dead in tribal area

Intel: Ex-Pakistan spy found dead in tribal region

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A former Pakistani intelligence officer abducted by an alleged militant group last month was found shot dead Friday in a northwest tribal region, officials said.

Khalid Khawaja went missing in late March with another ex-intelligence official called Sultan Amir Tarar and a filmmaker. There was no word on the fate of the two others.

The ex-spies have been known as supporters of Islamist causes and had past links with militants. Tarar helped establish the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when Pakistani security agencies were supporting the group.

Khawaja’s body was found on the road between Miran Shah and Mir Ali, two intelligence officials said. Those are the two main towns in North Waziristan, a region close to Afghanistan where the United States has conducted numerous missile strikes against militants.

Local TV channels broadcast a picture of what appeared to be Khawaja’s body. He had been shot in the head and chest, and a note attached to his body accused him of being an American spy, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be named by media.

The men were first reported abducted in late March.

Soon after, a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Asian Tigers claimed to be holding the men in a video delivered to local media. Any demands they had were not made public.

Pakistan’s main spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has past links with Islamist militants and Khawaja often appeared on television speaking in defense of suspected extremists. He has claimed to be close to Osama bin Laden in the early days of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union and in a recent interview with The Associated Press praised him repeatedly.

Recently, he has spoken up in defense of five young American terror suspects on trial in Pakistan. He also filed a petition in a Pakistani court to stop any attempt by Islamabad to extradite recently arrested Afghan Taliban leaders, including the movement’s No. 2 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

It was unclear why Khawaja and Tarar, also known as Col. Imam, made the trip to the tribal regions, which are highly dangerous for outsiders. Extremists there are very wary of potential spies because of the key role of human intelligence in directing the missile attacks.

Taliban expert Rahimullah Yousafzai said recently Imam and Khawaja may not have understood that younger militant groups in the northwest would not necessarily appreciate their militant sympathies.

“Times have changed and a new generation of militants has emerged that is suspicious of anyone linked to the Pakistan Army or the ISI,” he wrote in a column for The News daily. “Col. Imam and Khawaja must have felt that the militants posed no threat to them due to their past associations with jihadi and Taliban groups.”