Taliban Kill a Woman and a Child Seen as Spies

Taliban Kill a Woman and a Child Seen as Spies
By CARLOTTA GALL, New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 9 — Taliban militants killed a woman and her 13-year-old son after accusing them of spying for the government and for foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, the Afghan government said Wednesday.

The woman was shot and her son was hanged by an electrical wire from a tree on Monday in Helmand Province, said a spokesman for the provincial governor, Hajji Mohaiuddin.
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The woman and her son were killed in the village of Dast Mastan, near Musa Qala. Local officials, including the police chief, informed the provincial authorities about the killings, Mr. Mohaiuddin said.

“They were very poor people and they were accused of spying for the government and the foreign troops,” he said. “Definitely it was done by the Taliban.”
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Thomas Collins, a spokesman for the United States-led coalition, said coalition forces had learned from residents of one district in Ghazni Province, south of Kabul, that men suspected of being insurgents knocked on doors and demanded that each family provide a son to join the Taliban.

NATO spokesmen said they had learned of similar cases in southern Afghanistan, where NATO forces are now operating, including a case of insurgents killing a son in a family who refused the gunmen’s orders.