Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 22, 2007
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1936430.cms
The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In
a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as
an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive's head to cries of "God
is great!" and hoists it in triumph by the hair.
A video circulating in Pakistan records the
grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top
Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.
A reporter confirmed Nabi's identity by visiting
his family in Kili Faqiran, their remote village in southwestern Pakistan.
The video, obtained in the border city of Peshawar on Tuesday, appears authentic
and is unprecedented in jehadist pro-paganda because of the age of the executioner.
Captions mention Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's
current top commander in southern Afghanistan, although he does not appear
in the video. The soundtrack features songs praising Taliban supreme leader
Mullah Omar and "Sheikh Osama" - an apparent reference to Osama
bin Laden, who is suspected of hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The footage shows Nabi making what is described
as a confession, being blindfolded with a checkered scarf. "He is an
American spy. Those who do this kind of thing will get this kind of fate,"
says his baby-faced executioner, who is not identified.
A continuous 2 1/2-minute shot then shows
the victim lying on his side on a patch of rubble-strewn ground. A man holds
Nabi by his beard while the boy, wearing a camouflage military jacket and
oversized white sneakers, cuts into the throat. Other men and boys call out
"Allahu akbar!" - "God is great!" - as blood spurts from
the wound.
The film, overlain with jehadi songs, then
shows the boy hacking and slashing at the man's neck until the head is severed.
A Pashto-language voiceover in the video identifies
Nabi and his home village of Kili Faqiran in Balochistan province, which lies
about two hours' drive from the Afghan border.
A reporter went to the village, and Nabi's
distraught and angry father, Ghulam Sakhi, confirmed his son's identity from
a still picture made from the footage. He said neighbours had told him the
video is available at the village bazaar, but he had no wish to see it.
Sakhi said his son had been a loyal Taliban
member who fought in Afghanistan and sheltered the hard-line Afghan group's
leaders in the family's mud-walled compound.
- AP
