Paranoia rules the day.
(LWJ) — The Taliban have created a group assigned to hunt down tribesman suspected of providing information to the CIA that enables the Predator campaign to target terrorist leaders in Pakistani tribal areas.
The group, known as the Lashkar-e-Khorasan, or Army of the Khorasan, was established in North Waziristan last year by both the Haqqani Network and Taliban forces under the command of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, The Express Tribune reported. The creation of the group was confirmed by Pakistani intelligence officials, tribesmen, and members of the Taliban.
The Pakistani government continues to maintain that Bahadar and the Haqqani Network are “good Taliban” as they do not attack the Pakistani state, But both groups shelter al Qaeda, as well and Taliban groups that do conduct attacks in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.
The Lashkar-e-Khorasan was first established as a “loose network with members casually going out and trying to find out who is providing information to the US,” but has become an “organized” unit that is “scientifically on the counter-intelligence line,” a Taliban member assocaited with Bahadar’s group told the The Express Tribune.
The group has sought to uncover the network of tribesmen that are thought to be aiding the US Predator campaign that targets leaders and operatives of al Qaeda and allied groups, including the Haqqani Network and Bahadar’s fighters. The Predator campaign has focused on taking out al Qaeda’s external operations network, which is assigned to hitting western targets, as well as terror groups that attack the Afghan and Pakistani states.
The local anti-Taliban spy network is thought to observe the location of meeting and plant tracking chips on compounds and vehicles used by the terror groups. The information is provided to the CIA, which then executes the attacks via unmanned Predator and Reaper strike aircraft. The US has executed 234 strikes total since the program began in 2004; 224 of those strikes have taken place since January 2008 Of the 234 strikes since 2004, 168 have taken place in North Waziristan.
The Lashkar-e-Khorasan not only attempts to root out the spy network, it carries out the executions. Increasingly, the Taliban’s counterintelligence unit has been executing so-called US spies in batches. On March 1, the Taliban executed four more “US spies” in North Waziristan; four more were executed on March 21.
The executions are occasionally carried out in public, in a brutal fashion. On May 21, 2010, the Taliban placed suicide vests on the so-called spies, and detonate them in front of crowds of onlookers.